
Class Zb^J^^ 

Book_=rO_^7-^ 



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I 



SLAYEEY: 




ITS ORIGIN, NATURE, AND HISTORY, 



CONSIDERED IN 



THE LIGHT OF BIBLE TEACHINGS, MORAL 
JUSTICE, AND POLITICAL WISDOM. 



LOVE the motto, not LIBERTY. 

Object. — Trnth spoken in JL,ove on the subject of Abolitionism Its character 
freely, thoroughly to be discussed in the light of God's word, but with careful avoidance 
of personalities or ascription of motives. Hoping all things. Thinking no evil. 



REV. THORNTON STRINGFELLOW, D.D., 

OF COLPEPER COUNTT, VIRGINIA. 



NEW YORK : 

JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER. 50 GREENE ST. 

1861. 




SLAYEEY: 



ITS ORIGIN, JIATURE, AND HISTORY, 

CONSIDEKED IN * 7* 3 



THE LIGHT OF BIBLE TEACHINGS, MORAL 
JUSTICE, AND POLITICAL WISDOM. 



LOVE the motto, not lilBEKTY. 

Object.— Truth spokon in Lovo on the suhject of Abolitionism. Its character 
freely, thoroughly to be discussed in the light of God's word, but with careful avoidance 
of personalities or ascription of motives. Hoping all things. Thinking no evil. 



REV, THORNTON STRLNGFELLOW, D.D., 

OF CCLPEPER COUNTY, VIRGINIA. 



NEW YORK : 
JOHN F. TROW, PRINTER, 50 GREENE ST. 
1861. , 



EXTRACT FROM ADDRESS OF PROF. S. F. B. MORSE. 



It cannot but be obvious to all intelligent minds, that among the com- 
plex questions which have so long agitated the whole land, and which 
have mingled their discordant elements in producing the present alarming 
political condition of the country, so deeply distressing to every patriotic 
mind, the moral and religious question of slavery stands forth most promi- 
nent. Indeed, it is the fundamental question, and demands, first of all, a 
satisfactory settlement ; for on the right decision of this moral and re- 
ligious question depend all the other questions relating to slavery. "Whether 
slavery, or the condition of being held in subjection to the will of another, 
is a divine institution, sanctioned by laws and commands, and regulated 
from the earliest times, or is forbidden as a sin — as a violation of the laws 
of God— is surely a fundamental question. Difference here, at the start, 
is antipodal. The course of conduct pursued by the believers in these 
two extremes, must of necessity lead to results as diverse as light from 
darkness. Until this point is satisfactorily settled we cannot reach the 
expediency or inexpediency, the advantage or disadvantage, of this system 
of servitude. If it is a sin, if the Bible shows it to be a sin, the contro- 
versy is settled; we can have no compromise with sin; we have nothing 
to do with it but to forsake it. Hence all whose consciences sustain them 
in that view of the question are at least consistent in their zealous oppo- 
sition to slavery, and their determination to uproot it everywhere and at 
all hazards. On the other hand, if God has shown in his word and by his 
providence, that servitude or slavery, in its various modifications of form 
and duration, and of mild or severe character, has, from the beginning of 
the world, been an essential feature in His government of man ; that 
viewed from a loftier stand-point than is circumscribed by earth or time, 
there are benevolent ends in part comprehensible even by our short-sighted- 
ness, ends only attainable by this system, then tliey whose consciences sus- 
tain them in this view of the question, Avill be cautious how they rudely 
and recklessly fight against God and destroy it with violence. A glance 
at the character of the litigants on this question, show ranged on each side 
of the two opposing opinion^, men of the highest intellectual and moral 
character. Rash, indeed, w^-uld it be to charge either party with hypoc- 
risy. There is no need for such an uncharitable assumption. The huinblo 
seeker after truth w-ill not suffer its golden sands to escape him, even if he 
has to separate them, with labor, from the mire of human weakness and 
error, and hence he may not neglect the extrcmest views of tlic'bitterest 
opponents. Yet mindful of our own weakness and of our need of en- 
lightenment, to what standard, but God's word, shall we appeal as tho 
arbiter in such a conti-ovcrsy ? " To the law and to the testimony." 



SLAVERY AWD G-OVERNMENT. 



CHAPTER I, 



fllmi Slavery is — Wliat Freedom is — lione are ' bor;i''frcc : all are ' hor7i ' slaves 

Slavery a necesaity— Why the white race is invested with political freedom at 
tmnty-one — Why it is withheld from the black race for life — Slavery is 
just, and ivhy — None are born equal: inequality the ground of social happi- 
ness — What government is : tvhat its object is : where it originated : by ivhom. 
it should be exercised, and why — Inferiority of the black race : the proof of it. 

It is not mnny years since our brethren at the ISTorth engaged in a 
crnsade against Slavery; because (as they said) it was denounced in 
every page of the Bible as tlie greatest sin on earth. 

The Bible has been examined, and it has been found that slavery is 
fully sanctioned by it. Nevertheless, this crusade has waxed warmer 
against slavery, as a sin of the deepest dye ; because it was a sin (as they 
have said) against a higher law than the Bible. No appeal is noAV made 
to the Bible, but to consciences begotten by infidelity. By this new- 
conscience every question of right and Avrong is to be tried, and every 
penalty inflicted. These crusaders have adopted as their Bible, on the 
subject of slavery, Mr. Jefferson's declaration, that " all men are born free 
and equal." It may not bo amiss then to try this nev/ Bible by the com- 
mon sense and the common observation of all men — to see whether it 
ought to have preference over the old Bible, before we throw the old one 
away, as our brethren of the North do when it conflicts with their new 
anti-slavery Bible. First, then, let us inquire, 

Wliat is Shivery in the United States ? 

Ansioer.—lt is a system of personal servitude, under a form of govern- 
ment adopted for tlie African race, the leading princiido of which belongs 
to every form of government among men. 

Question. — What is that loading principle? 

Answer.— It is submission to, and control bv the will of another. This 
IS the essential principle of all forms of government ; and without it there 
can be no government. It is the principle ordained of God for the gov- 
ernment of a family. Its administration is given of God to the heads of 
famdies, who have instinctively accepted and acted upon it in all ages and 
countries. 

Question.— ^hai is the amoimt of power in their hands to enforce 
obedience over children and slaves ? And what is the object aimed 
at in its exercise ? 

Ansicer.—ThQ amount of power in their hands to enforce obedience 



4 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

over children and slaves, is limited to the use of all necessary and proper 
means to secure obedience, and the object aimed at in its exercise, is to 
develop their faculties, and lit them to take care of families, and discharge 
political duties. 

Question. — What is a slave in the United States ? 

Answer. — A slave, according to the Federal Constitution, is a person 
who owes service or labor to another person. In the language of the 
Scriptures, he is a " man's money." 

Question. — What is an apprentice in the United States? 

Answer. — An apprentice according to the Constitution, is a person 
who owes service or labor to another person. 

Question. — Does a child stand in the same relation to his father, (as 
regards service and subjection to his will,) that an apprentice or slave 
does to his master ? 

Ansicer. — Yes, until he is twenty-one years old. 

Question. — Is this service, or labor of children, apprentices, and slaves, 
legal property in the United States ? 

Answer. — Yes, it is so declared by the laws of every State in the Union, 
except as to slaves, and by the slaveholding States as to them. 

Question. — What is the difference, then, between a slave and a white 
minor who is called free ? 

Ansu-er. — The difterence is that a slave of the black race owes labor 
and subjection to his master for life ; while the white minor and apprentice 
only owe service and subjection until they are tv,-enty-one years old. 

Question. — Has a parent a legal property right in the service or labor 
of his child, and a legal right to control him and coerce him to obedience 
without his consent? 

Ansicer. — Yes, he has exactly the same property right in the service 
or labor of his cliild until he is twenty-ono years old, and exactly the same 
right to control him, and to coerce obedience to his authority until that 
time, that the master has in and over his slave. 

Question. — Has the parent of the child, and the master of the slave, 
unlimited discretion in compelling obedience to their authority ? 

Answer. — No. Both the parent and the master are restricted by stat- 
ute laws, and judicial decisions, to the use of such means only as are ne- 
cessary and proper to secure obedience. Both parents and masters arc 
responsible to the State for the exercise of means that are improper and 
unnecessary to secure this end. 

Question. — Why does the law give freedom to the white race at the 
age of twenty-one, and withhold it from the black race during life ? 

Answer. — Because experience teaches that the white race can be pre- 
pared in that time to take charge of families, and perform the duties of 
citizens ; wliile, on the other hand, experience demonstrates that the 
black race cannot ];e prepai-cd during a whole life to take charge of 
families, or perform the duties of citizens. 

Question. — But if they could be prepared in that time to use freedom 
for their own good, and that of the community, would it be right to ac- 
cord it to them? 

Answer. — It certainly would accord v.'ith Cliristian obligation. The 
only safe guide avo have in a family, or State, by which to decide the 
amount of self-control or freedom to which men or minors are entitled 
under any form of government, is experience : that, and that only, will 
tell us how much of freedom they can use as a good to themselves, in 
subordination to the general good of the family, or State. When freedom 
is not a good to both, it is a duty to withhold it. 

Question. — If self-control constitutes freedom, and control by another 
constitutes what is properly called slavery, then is not every i)crson to the 
extent of that control a slave, wjicther he be called free or bond ? 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 



Answer.— Cevta.m]j he is a slave, whether so called, or not. The name 
does not always indicate truly the actual condition of persons in a par- 
ticular relation of life. . I-C 

Question. — Is the citizen who owes allegiance to the State for life, as 
prop'erly a slave to the State for life, as the African, who owes service or 
labor to his master for life ? 

Answer.— Gevtamly, he is as much a slave to the State, though he bo 
called a freeman. The State subjects men while within her jurisdiction to 
her control, and claims a right to their service in whatever form she may 
in her sovereignty be pleased to call for it ; so the master subjects his slave 
to his control, and claims a right to his service in whatever form he may 

call for it. , , . ■. 

Question. — But is not this service or labor to the State, and this sub- 
jection to her authority, all voluntary on the part of the white race ? 

Answer. — It is not more voluntary with the white minor, and the female 
half of the white race, than with the black slave. Both may quietly sub- 
mit to it, while neither may like it. The Avhite minor and the black slave 
are both born equally subject to absolute control without their consent. 
Both are born in a state of domestic bondage, one for life to his master, 
the other for twenty-one years to his father. When this age is reached, 
he who has been in domestic bondage up to this time, silently acquiesces 
in subjection to the State, which now binds him for the balance of his 
life to service and subjection, as the African is bound to his master for 
the balance of his life. The State, who is the master of the citizen, and 
the man, who is the master of the slave, is rightfully clothed with author- 
ity the world over to maintain dominion over botli. This authority, or 
power to govern them, is from God. It was given to Adam before the 
lirst child was born. God said to Eve that Adam should rule over her. 
This included the family and the State. From my knowledge of both 
races in the United States, I am of opinion that the per cent, of Afri- 
cans v/ho are satisfied with their domestic bondage, is much greater than 
the per cent, of the white race who are satisfied with their political 
bondage. 

Question.— B.OW is this to be accounted for ? 

Aimcer.— Because domestic bondmen are parts of families for whose 
comfort ample provision is made. They are supplied with good homes, 
with all the necessary w^ants of themselves and their families for life, in 
sickness and in health, in infancy and in old age,— with an entire exemp- 
tion from anxious care ; while political bondage subjects the citizen to 
pecuniary burdens and an oppressive competition, which leaves him too 
often without a home and a comfortable supply for his necessary wants. 
In addition to this, political bondage subjects the citizen to al the penis 
attendant upon war, and a due execution of the law, from all ot which 
the African slave, in domestic bondage, is entirely exeinpted. 

Question —But if " all men are born free and equal,' does it not follow 
that children must be released from parental authority and service, appren- 
tices from service and subiection to masters, and citizens froin subjection 
to States, as soon as slaves from subjection and service to their masters i 
Answer.— Yei^, all this follows as a necessary consequence if all men 
are born free and equal. , ^ t to 

Question.— -Wd\, is it not true that all men are born free and equal? 
A7iswer.—^o. Every man who ever raised, or saw an miant man 
raised to manhood, knows that it is not true. 
Question.— yfhatish-eedoml 

Answer— It is defined to be "independence," "liberty," "exemption 
from control." Man, when born, is the most dependent creature on earth. 
He must be deprived of all liberty, to save his life. 

Question.— Cm he be deprived of all liberty, and still be free ? 



6 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

Answer. — He irnist be controlled in every thing. 

Question.— Is he still exempt from control ? 

Ansicer. There has never been an assertion made and believed, which 

all might know with so much certainty to be untrue. Man, when born, 
is helplessly dependent; free to do nothing without permission, and 
entirely under parental control, until he is given up to the control of the 
State, which holds him under control until death. If this constitutes 
freedom, then all men are born free, but not otherwise. 

The second thing affirmed in this Declaration of Independence, and, 
which with the above error, has been adopted by a portion of our coun- 
trymen as a part of their Bible, is, that '• all men are born equal." I v.'ill 
only reply in language which all men know to be true, that they are not 
born intellectually equal; that they are not born morally equal; tliat 
they are not born politically equal ; that they are not born equal in social 
position, or advantages ; nor are they in any other sense equal, as integral 
parts of earthly governments, of which I can conceive, from their birth 
until their death. And yet a belief in these abstractions, these palpable false- 
hoods, is at the bottom of a crusade against organized society and constitu- 
tional liberty in the United States, which aims at the destruction of all the 
safeguards of life and property, and a universal overthrow of law and order, 
save that of the " higher law" of every murderer's conscience. We have 
lately had a specimen of the conscience which this ''higher law" pro- 
duces. It was exhibited in the person of John Brown and a few others. 

This specimen is much admired by all of the same faith and order— so 
much so, that he is regarded by them as the second Saviour of the vrorld, 
— who is destined to be as much honored for substituting his own con- 
science for the Bible, as Jesus Christ has been for giving eternal life to 
them that love him ; and who prove that love, as the Bible directs, by 
yielding a willing obedience to law and order in all the relations of life. 
And because of this assumed fi-eedom and equality, with certain assmned 
unalienable rights, the conclusion is drawn, according to this new political 
Bible, that all good government must originate in the consent of the gov- 
erned. I3ut seeing — as we all must see — that none are born either freQ 
or equal; and that subjection to government from birth is a universal 
necessity ; it is not true that government originates in the consent of the 
governed. The African slave is as free to choose his government as tho 
white minor, until the white minor reaches twenty-one years of age._ At 
that age he acquires a right, in most of our States, to make, or aid in 
making imi)rovements in the laws ; but he can never acquire a right to 
abolish government, for that is God's ordinance, and cannot be rightfully 
abolished. 

Two questions are appropriate at this point :— "What is government? 
And what is its origin ? 

yl??^M;e/-.— Government is control ; it is the opposite of freedom, or a 
right to do as we please. It is power to compel obedience to the will of a 
superior. Where did it originate ? It originated in the will of God ; and 
was ordained as soon as sin entered into the world, by an express dele- 
gation of power to Adam to rule his family. Family government is tho 
true model of all government. There never has been, or can be a family 
where it does not co-exist. If societies or nations were all dissolved, this 
government would still exist. Its powers, objects, and administration 
would remain the same. 

Family government is a necessity in nature. Every new family m- 
stinctively assumes it because it is God's ordinance. It is the best model 
of a State. Here the princii)les and objects of government are first learned. 
Without tills school the idea of government could not be known. 

Adam's family wore i)arts of liimscif; and so of all families. This is 
tlie Divine guarautco for a right use of family authority. Tho impulses 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 



of nature constitute the guarantee that the divinely constituted head will 
rule the family in righteousness, and not abuse his authority in chastizing 

for disobedience. , . , -.i, i. -^ 4.1 ^a 

Family governraent cannot be dispensed with ; without it, tlie woria 
would he depopulated. It is the nursery and school-room in which the 
materials for large families or States, must of necessity be prepared. A 
well-governed family is the best model for a State which exists among 
men It is in tlie family that every human being learns the nature, the 
necessity, and the objects of government, and the necessity for such modi- 
fications as experience suggests. Here we learn that government must 
be"-in in absolute despotism, instead of absolute freedom. Here we learn 
that all men are born slaves to parents, that parents have a right to then- 
service : and a right to control them until they arc qualified to raise 1am- 
ilie^ and use political freedom. All self-control, which is freedom, is 
cruelty to the infant man, and utterly inconsistent with doing to others 
" as we would they should do unto us." It is here we learn to what ex- 
tent authority may be relaxed in subordination to the general good, that 
what would be a good to one would be an evil to another ; that the ob- 
iect of government is to prevent the evil, to promote the good, and to 
educate tiie body and mind. It is here we learn that_ the government 
suited to one individual, or family, would be very unsuitable to another. 
That the amount of self-control to which some members entitle them- 
selves in a family, can never be safely granted to others. It is in the 
family we learn to love each other, to sympathize with each other, to do 
iustice, to speak truth, what virtue is, what vice is, what personal and 
property rights are, what law is, what authority is, and how, and why 
it should be used in enforcing law. It is here we learn that age ought 
to control infancy, that wisdom ought to control ignorance, and that hb- 
erty of action and opinion should be accorded by a standard that expe- 
rience only can furnish. It is in the family that we learn that there is a 
God our responsibility to Him, and the principles contained m his word tor 
the nioral and social control of the world. It is here we learii the qualifica- 
tions which fit us to raise families, and meet the responsibilities of political 
freedom And here we learn that wisdom, experience, and the highest 
degree of interest in the well-being of those to be governed, are necessary 
qualifications in those who govern. This government has been sanctioned 
by the States of the Federal Union for every white family and their slaves. 
If we war ao-ainst domestic, or family government, because it claims 
service or labor of the African slave for life, and subjects him to the 
control of a master, must we not, for the same reason, wage war against 
it for exacting service or labor from our children, and subjecting them to 
our control until they are twenty-one years old ? And must we not wage 
war ao-ainst all governments which sanction the same principle, and do the 
same thing, as every government has done since the world began? And 
when this waris successfully ended against all control, except our own 
wills, or the new conscience of the "liigher law " Bible, will there be any 
government left on earth to control, or prevent any being from domg all 
that a depraved nature may prompt him to do? ., , , „ ..„^ .v„ 

But it is said that slavery is unjust; inasmuch as ittalccs fiom the 
slave his labor, and the control of himself, both of which it is said belong 
to him. Let use examine this objection. 

Question.— What \s imt\cQ'i , ,., . . 

Answer.-Locke says, " it is that virtue by which we give to evei y man 
that which is his due." Shakspeare says " it is retribution • which Ba- 
con defines to be, " return accommodated to the action." Both definitions 
claim for .he slave-whether the white minor, or the black Afncan-an 
equivalent for the service they render, and the submission to which they 
are subjected. 



8 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

It is perfect folly to ignore the analogy between the slavery of our 
children and that of the African, and claim for our children a legal ex- 
emption from a condition of slavery as complete and perfect as that of 
the African slave. 

The service or labor of our child is legally our money ; we can coerce 
this labor at home — we can hire out this labor to another — or we can sell 
it at any price it will command in the market ; and by such sale we pass 
to the purchaser our authority to control our child, by all necessary and 
proper means for that end, until he is twenty-one years old. This, and no 
more, is true of the African slave, except as to the length of time he 
serves. The service or labor of our slave, is legally our money for life. 
The service or labor of our child, is legally our money for twenty-one 
years. "We can hire this service or labor of our slave to another, just as 
we can that of our child ; or we can sell it for life, just as we can that of 
our child for twenty-one years ; and with this service or labor we pass to 
the purchaser our authority to control our slave, just as we do our child — 
and by means only for that end which are necessary and proper. 

Now for this service or labor and for this subjection and control 
what does the child receive on the one hand, and what does the African 
slave receive on the other, that makes this slavery just? Unless they 
both receive in return " Avhat is due" — or, " what is accommodated to the 
action," then this slavery of our children and of Africans is unjust. 

"What does our child receive as a compensation for his labor and subjec- 
tion to our control for twenty-one years? He receives a sleepless and 
untiring watch-care from his birth, night and day, in sickness and in health, 
in prosperity and adversity, until he is twenty-one years old. He receives 
also an exemption from all care ; — food to eat, and raiment to put on ; a 
home to shield him and a hand to defend him, a teacher to instruct and 
a friend to restrain him ; until his mental and physical nature is suffi- 
ciently developed, and his character and Ik^ibits sufficiently formed, to take 
the responsibilities of life on Inmself ; or in other words, to provide for 
and govern a family, and meet the demands of political freedom. For 
all of this, which commences with his first breath, and intermits not for 
a moment ; that has for its object the formation of character, and the 
acquisition of habits which will make him a blessing to himself and the 
world ; the parent receives about eight years' service, and the most of that 
worth but little, from the fact that skill and strength have first to be 
acquired for every species of labor which has any value to the parent for 
the present, or to the child hereafter. 

Now to say that this child does not receive in all this, more than jus- 
tice demands, as a reward for his service or labor, and for his filial obedi- 
ence, is what no man can say who desires to honor his own understand- 
ing. If these views be correct as regards our children, then the slavery 
to which they are subjected for twenty-one years is not unjust; and if 
slavery for twentv-one years can be just, upon the ground that the slave 
receives what is 'his due,— and that in a form " accommodated to the 
action," or service rendered,— then it follows that slavery for a longer 
time, or for the whole of life, may, for the same reason, be just also. 

The Almighty has subjected all of Adam's posterity to a state of 
slavery as they are born into the world. Instead of giving them at their 
birth full-grown maturity and freedom, which was as easy for infinite 
wisdom and Almiirhtv power. He ordained helplessness at their birth,_ — 
delegated power to Adam to rule over them— and then by a necessity 
growing out of this helplessness, compelled him to take charge of them, 
until their physical and intellectual natures could be educated to take 
charge of themselves. 

The Divine constitution of things on which social happiness and pros- 
perity arc made to depend, is adapted to this condition of lielpless depend- 



SLAVKRY AND GOVERNMENT. 9 

enee at our birth, and the want of equality in every individual of the 
species. In this constitution of things there is a harmonious blending of 
unequals. Instead of created equality^ which does not exist among men — 
and which can be found nowhere, we find created inequality every- 
where ; and this inequality among men, is made of God to be i\\Q cohesive 
element which binds all together in the social body ; so that the head 
cannot say to the feet, I have no need of thee ; so that the least honor- 
able make up but one social body without any schism— all the members 
equally needful, and harmoniously blending in the production of results 
which can never be reached by tlie control of any principle, which refuses 
subordination, subjection, and dependence among the various members. 

In tlie family, which is the oldest and most important social organiza- 
tion, inequality, in every respect, is found to exist among all the members. 
Some have endowments to advance the general Avelfare ; sonie ai'e so 
dwarfed as to be incapable of a higher function than that of executing 
what another contrives ; some have powers fitting them for control — 
others have qualities fitting them for humble submission and grateful de- 
pendence. In this most ancient organization, experience unfolds the prin- 
ciples for constructing a social body out of parts unequal, by which each 
member shall be rendered useful, made a contributor to the general wel- 
fare, and a partaker in the general result to the full amount of his due. 

It is in the family that individuals learn dependence npon each other — 
liow they can help eacli other, and how they can injure each other. It 
is hero that our moral nature is trained to " vreep with them that weep," 
and to " rejoice with them that do rejoice." Here we learn to love each 
other, and to be grateful. Here the kind offices have been practised 
which bind the heart of the grown man to the decrepitude of him who has 
watched his infancy, controlled his boyhood, and elevated him to man- 
hood. It is on this theatre that the thrilling events and cheering remi- 
niscences have been acted, which bind brother to brother, and sister to 
sister, children to parents, and man to man. It is here we learn the 
measure of incajyacity which disqualifies for the higher responsibilities, 
and political and constitutional freedom ; and it is pre-eminently true, 
that this school alone can teach us the measure of fi-eedom with which 
the African slave can be invested, consistently vrith his own good and that 
of the community. The knowledge thus gained testifies that the do- 
mestic slavery of the United States accords to him all the freedom that 
is justly due to him, or that could be accorded on Christian principles — 
and that he should be held in that condition until his pupilage has devel- 
oped the requisite (lualifications for using more enlarged freedom. 

The white child is held to service and control until he is supposed to 
he qualified to use political and constitutional freedom. This freedom, 
when it is accorded to him at the age of twenty-one, is accorded on the 
supposition that he is qualified to use it. If, upon trial, however, this sup- 
position proves to be a mistake in the case of an individual, the State re- 
serves to herself tlie right to withdraw his constitutional and political 
freedom, and to subject him to such a system of slavery or servitude, as in 
her judgment is best adapted to promote his own good, and that of the 
State ; and to continue that state of slavery or servitude for any length 
of time which the State thinks will best subserve this end. This slavery 
to the State may consist in rendering service or labor in the penitentiary, 
in the work-house, or to a domestic master for a price to the State which ho 
shall pay for this service, which belongs of right to the State. All this shows 
that the reason for which persons should be subjected to slavery in any form, 
for limited or unlimited periods, is because they are unfit to use freedom 
as a good to themselves, in subserviency to the good of the conmumity. 

"We have shown why slavery is just to minors; that they received as 
much, or more, than they were justly entitled to ; and in a form best 



10 SLAVERY AND GOVERKMENT. 

accommodated to the service and subjection rendered, as an equivalent 
■ for it. It remains to be shown that domestic slavery for life is just and 
proper for the African race — because they are not qualified to use political 
freedom, and because they receive the full due for this service and labor, 
and that in a form accommodated to the service they pay for it. 

The African race is constitutionally inferior to the white race. Expe- 
rience proves this in all the conditions and countries they have ever oc- 
cupied. The African has left no memorial which pi-oves his capacity to 
improve, unaided by a superior race, or to progress Avhen improvement has 
been givenuhim. There is a great physical, moral, and intellectual difter- 
ence between the two races. The tendency upon each race of the same 
set of circumstances, does not diminish, but increases this difierence 
through life. The age of twenty-one, which gives bodily maturity to 
both races, develops moral and intellectual manhood in the white race, 
while the African remains, at the end of that time, a mere child in intel- 
lectual and moral development, perfectly incapable of performing the 
great functions of social life. By nature he is contented everywhere in 
destitution, until want pinches him. In freedom, he cannot be educated 
to provide for his present wants — much less to lay by him in store for the 
future. It is the present oulj' that excites him to action. No wages will 
secure habitual and continued labor from him, while he is free to consult 
his own will. He can imitate, but cannot originate any thing. He can 
execute, but cannot contrive. By nature he is affectionate to his master, 
and if he has a good one, will separate from wife and children sooner 
than from him ; so will a wife from her husband and children. He intui- 
tively looks up to the superior race for control and protection. In sla- 
very he yields hearty submission to authority, and is as proud of a rich 
master, as if his master's wealth were all his own. He instinctively turns 
from the poor white man, unless he shows by his manners that he has 
been well raised. The slave looks w*ith disgust upon the free negro, be- 
cause of his poverty and rags, and because he lacks those qualities which 
entitle freedom to respect. As a general rule, he refuses marriage with a 
free negro, because of his merited degradation in society. The slaves have 
no aspirations for political freedom, or freedom of any kind, except free- 
dom to do nothing. 

A universal tendency is seen in those slaves who have been advanced 
in civilization, to retrograde under tlie influence of freedom when it is 
bestowed on them ; and this tendency is seldom arrested until it reaches 
the lowest level. It would be difllcult to find an exception to this genei'al 
rule, and more so, to find an instance of progressive improvement after 
freedom is obtained. One trait in their character in the United States 
corresponds in a remarkable degree witli their native character in Africa; 
that is, an aff"ectionate loyalty to their master. Tliey will stand by him 
here, and in Africa, to the death against foreign enemies. In tlie war of 
the Eevolution, and in tliat of 1812, they stood by their masters' defence- 
less wives and children, as a wall of fire for their protection and defence 
against the British and Tories. Tlie same fidelity was shown by them in 
the late attempt to hlienate them at Harper's Ferry. They form an ex- 
ception in this respect to all other races of men. Their loyalty may be 
measured l)y their amount of intelligence. Their intelligence has regu- 
larly progressed since they first landed on this continent. As their intel- 
ligence increases, so does their devotion to the white race, and to the 
relation they sustain to that race. Hence, at the present time, a large 
per cent, of African intelligence repudiates freedom, and for reasons so 
sensible, and so unanswerable, as to make misguided philanthropy blush 
for its want of sound, practical common sense. Their answer to the 
sophistry of this spurious benevolence is always at hand, and will continue 
to be so, as long as free negroes are to bo found in their present condition 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 11 

everywhere on the globe. They have acquired a pretty correct knowl- 
edge of what they cannot see at a distance, and that confirms tliem in the 
opinion they have formed from what they do see around them— and that 
opinion is, that as a race, the protection, control, and social advantages of 
the white race are a positive necessity to them, and that they are worth 
more to them as a race, than their service or labor can be to the Avhite 
race, after abstracting for themselves a full supply for every want during 
the vicissitudes of an entire life. And with the permission and encourage- 
ment of their masters, they v.ould exterminate the agents who come 
among us to alienate them from their allegiance. 

My purpose, thus far, has been to show that African slavery in the 
United States is a social and political necessity, and to show that it is just 
to the African, as it accords to him, in a form best adapted to his nature, 
more than an equivalent for his service, or labor ; and that it is in accord- 
ance with the obligation to " do good to all men," and to " do to others 
as we would they should do unto us." 

If the question of enslaving free Africans on the continent of Africa 
were an open one, it would aid us, before deciding it, to suppose a case. 
A free African infant on that continent, endowed v.ith the inteUigence 
of manhood, is approached by one of the Avhite race, who proposes 
hereditary bondage to him and his posterity, and as an equivalent to him 
for the loss of his liberty, offers him the following compensation : If you 
will allov*^ me to control you and your posterity, I will give you in return 
vrhat v.-ill be worth more to you and to them, than your freedom and the 
avails of your labor. I will guarantee to you and to them, from the 
cradle until death, the benefit of all the endowments of the white race, 
in the fohowing particulars : First, an unceasing watch-care shall be 
given to your persons ; second, the best medical skill sliall bo furnished 
you v>^hen sick ; third, the best surroundings of sympathy ai, ,1 kindness 
shall be secured to you when afflicted ; fourth, good homes ;;id houses 
secured to yon for life ; fifth, good and suitable clothing shall be famished 
you to put on ; sixth, you shall have a bountiful supply of food at all 
times to eat; seventh, you shall be protected from insult and injury; 
eighth, you shall be relieved from all anxious care ; ninth, you shall be 
shielded from the perils of war, and the burdens of government ; tenth, 
you shall be furnished with gospel instruction ; eleventh, you shall enjoy 
the benefits and blessings of the best school in the Vv'orld, that of domestic 
association for life with a superior order of honorable and cultivated men 
and women. By their example, and their superior intellects, you will 
learn lessons of more real value to you than all the books and school- 
masters on the globe could ever teach you, while you stand in any other 
relation to this superior race, than that of being a part and parcel of their 
family, working for their benefit, and subjected to their control and gov- 
ernment. This control and government are the same to which their chil- 
dren are subjected, while being trained up to maturity and manhood. If 
you cannot reach the same attainments they do, you can make yourself 
welcome as a part of their families by the discharge of your duty, and 
can share with them in all the advantages which can rightfully be ac- 
corded to your attainments. And all the progressive attninments you may 
make in this school, shall continue to be rewarded with the advantages 
which justice may claim for them. 

This young African subsequently replies : Since your proposal, I have 
had a review of the world's history, covering a period of more than tlireo 
thousand years. During all this time, I have seen that my race in Africa 
—so prolific in every thing that makes up the catalogue of human com- 
fort, vdth all the advantages of a climate peculiarly adapted to the health 
of my race, — yet I have seen that they have reniained a mass of moral 
degradation and stolid ignorance, sinking lower and lower in the scale of 



12 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

intelligence and civilization, until, npon its southern half (stretching from 
the Equator to the Cape of Good Hope) all knowledge of God, of immor- 
tality, of sin, of right and wrong, of heaven and hell, -which originally 
they must have brought with them, is entirely lost ; and instead of settled 
homes to raise their children, and an organized system to supply their 
wants and protect their lives, they have become, by day, homeless, roving 
vagabonds, picking up something as chance may favor, to support life; 
and brutes by night, piled up like hogs, in holes they scratch in the sand, 
to rest their naked bodies. "While its northern half, (stretching from the 
Equator to the Mediterranean,) with slight exceptions, is one great grave- 
yard, enclosing unnumbered millions of the dead of my race, who have 
been sacrificed by war and famine for the pi-ivilege of making slaves of 
their brothers and sisters, and their own children, without the slightest 
advance in civilization. 

I have learned, also, from the Christian's Bible, that the Being who 
made this world, once destroyed by a flood of water all its inhabitants 
for their wickedness, except one man named Noah, and his three sons, 
Shem, Ilam, and Japheth, and their wives. Ham, my father, was a com- 
pound of beastly wickedness. I learned from this Book that these three 
sons were types of nations, that were to spring from them to repeople the 
earth. The descendants of Shem were to be distinguished for the blessed 
God they worshipped, whose character and perfections it was their mis- 
sion to make known to all others ; and that the descendants of Ham, my 
father, were made their servants. The descendants of Japheth were 
distinguished for a progressive intelligence, and a commanding influence 
upon the destinies of tlie world. These qualities were to give them do- 
minion in the tents of Shem, and the descendants of Ham were made 
their servants. And this future elevation of Japheth to the dominion of 
the world, was to harmonize with supreme reverence for that God whom 
they had been brought to knovv' by dwelling in the tents of Shem, whoso 
God was the eternal I AM, and not dumb idols. 

The descendants of Ham, the beastly and degraded son of Noah, were 
subjected to a degraded servitude to Shem and Japheth. 

After this I learned that slavery was spread over the whole globe, 
embracing the descendants of Shem, Ham, and Japheth. I learned, also, 
that subsequently freedom was extended in many nations to the descend- 
ants of Shem and Japheth, and last of all, to some of the descendants of 
Ham, my father. I was astonished at the result. The emancipated 
descendants of Shem and Japheth invariably made progress, and reached 
higher attainments in freedom. My race invariably retrograded from 
the position they had reached under the enlightened control of Shem or 
Japheth. The invariable tendency of freedom was to sink them to the 
level of their original degradation. 

Now, I will not make a decision for this yoimg African on the con- 
tinent of Africa; but I will say, that all enlightened manhood, which 
thinks it unjust and sinful to subject such helpless and hopeless moral and 
social degradation to intelligent and human control, and invest it with 
the social and religious advantages of the slavery of this Union — dis- 
honors the human understanding, the best instincts of our nature, and is 
utterly unfit to take charge of a nation's welfare. 

The picture drawn expresses sober historical truth with respect to 
Ham's sons when invested with freedom on the one hand, and American 
bondage on the other. Exceptions may bo found to the general rule of 
good treatment to the slave in the United States ; so they may in all the 
relations existing among men. Tiie relation of husband and wife should 
secure kindness to the wife ; yet the percent, of husbands, where slavery 
does not exist, who abuse llieir authority and neglect tlicir duty to their 
wives, I set down, from all the information I can get, as greater than the 



SLAVERY AND GOVKRKMKNT, 13 

per cent, of masters at the South who abuse their authority and neglect 
their duty to their slaves. The per cent, of fathers, within the range of 
exclusive freedom, who abuse their autliority over their children, or who 
use it without regard to the object for -which it was given of God, I set 
down, from all the data I can command, as greater than the per cent, of 
Southern masters, who do the same thing to their slaves. The per cent, 
of free white families at the North, for whose comfort there is not a regu- 
lar and proper provision made by their domestic heads, is greater than 
the number of slave families whose Southern masters have failed to make 
such a provision for them. The per cent, of white families, for whose 
condition in infoncy, sickness, and old age, there is not suitable medical 
aid and sympathetic attention provided by their domestic heads, is perhaps 
many thousand times greater at the North, than the per cent, of slave 
families who arc unprovided by their Southern masters with these indis- 
pensable blessings. Among four millions of slaves at the South there is 
not one pauper, although one-fourth of their lives they are helpless, 
either from the weakness of infancy, or the infirmities of old age. At 
the North, every seventh fanaily is without a home, and in the cities, one- 
fifth of the persons must receive help or perish ; while four millions of 
slaves at the South have good homes, and three plentiful meals of good 
food provided for them, by their masters, every day— with comfortable 
clothing, and an unlimited supply of fuel for fires, in winter. Such a 
provision as this has never been secured to any equal number of free 
laborers on the globe. It is perfectly horrifying to a Southern slave- 
owner to read the statistics of poverty, vice, and suffering, where money 
is the master of labor. The skill and industry of the white race, in gen- 
eral, justly entitle them to a comfortable y)ro vision for life ; but, within 
the boundaries of exclusive freedom, cnpidity and the povi'er of money 
wifhhold it as soon as the supply of free labor exceeds the demands of 
capital. That state of things often happens with slave labor and capital 
at the South ; but, then, the slave's wages are not diminished : neither is 
he dismissed to perish of want, or to sell himself to work wickedness. 

Slavery, or control by the will of another, in some form, and to the 
extent which varying circumstances make proper, is now, and has been 
in all ages, an indispensable necessity. Too large a measure or too great 
an abridgment of liberty is equally fatal to the welfare of a people and to 
the happiness of individuals. The elementary principle which should 
control a wise settlement of the proper amount of freedom to classes or 
individuals, under any form of government, whether family. State, or 
Federal, is best learned in rearing and governing a family. Here expe- 
rience becomes the basis of theory ; and not theory the basis of practice. 
Here we learn that of the white race, in the highest forms of civilization, 
about seven-eighths of the number to be governed are subjoeted, without 
their consent in any form, to the control and government of about one- 
eighth of the individuals who make up the families or States. One half, 
being females, are so subjected for life ; and three-fourths of the other 
half, being minors, are so subjected for a term of years. The remaining 
fourth are all that can bo said, in any sense of the word, to be governed 
by their own wills— and, when formed into States, they are slaves, or 
what is the same, are subjected to the control of their own State law, and 
are as liable to its burdens and penalties as any other class of persons. 
The reason and the propriety of enslaving or controlling this large majority 
by this small minority are so obvious, that no government within the 
pale of Christian civilization has ever been constructed without being 
controlled by the reason which makes it proper. What is tluat reason ? 
It is, that the portion thus excluded from the governing power arc not 
qualified to exercise this power, Avith safety to themselves or others. In 
that disqualijication, the ftofriety is found of withholding this power 



14 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

from them ; and of subjecting them to the control of those who are quali- 
fied to govern. In tliis state of facts — disclosed by the experience of all ages 
— originate all tlie varying forms of involnntary servitude found among 
men." The principles of righteousness lend their full sanction to the con- 
trol which subordinates individual freedom to the general good, and accords 
to individuals only the amount they can use as a good. By this standard 
of measuring the right and the wrong of slavery, of freedom^ and of gov- 
ernment, African slavery in the United States ought to be tested. When- 
ever it is so tested, it will be found to be right for the white race— just 
and humane for the black race — expedient and proper for both races — 
and in accordance v/ith the highest responsibilities of Christian freemen. 

So far as the capacity of the African has yet been develoi)ed, we have 
no reason to believe they can retain the blessings of civilization and the 
gospel which we have given them, when our control and protection are 
withdrawn. The evidence which sustains this conclusion, stares the civ- 
ilized world in the face, like the sun in the heavens. 

On this continent, at an early stage of our history, well meant efforts 
were permitted in the providence of God, the object of v\^hich was to 
bless Ham's race by releasing them from onr control, and giving them 
freedom. These efforts have gone on among well-meaning men for more 
than two centuries. For the whole of this time, facts have been accumu- 
lating, which prove their freedom to le a cvrse, both to them and the 
white race. Still, additional aids, suggested by benevolence, have been 
resorted to by good men in the slave States, to make the experiment suc- 
cessful, nntil the demonstration seems complete, that freedom to them is 
a curse on this contineiit, and everywhere else on the globe. These un- 
tiring efforts on the part of benevolent individuals, have been in silent 
progress in the slave States, and are but little known by those at a dis- 
tance. Their voice is the voice of God. He thus 2)rocIaims to v,% tMt 
in these efforts tee are icarring against Ilis fixed flan. Misguided philan- 
thropy, however, still found excuses for the failure. That failure, it was 
thought, would not have taken place upon a fair field for the experiment. 
To meet this bewitching blindness of benevolent slaveholders at the South, 
God in His providence has tolerated the selection of three different theatres, 
more favorably situated, upon which to make the experiment on a large 
scale. Two of them he surrounded with the overflowings of sympathy, 
aid, and counsel, by three of the most powerful nations of the earth. 

In Jamaica, one hundred millions of dollars were paid to tiie owners of 
Ham's descendants in that island by the English government, to release 
from bondage a set of well-fed laborers, who were supi)lying their own 
wants, rendering a remunerating income to their owners, and a needful 
supply of tropical productions for the wants of the mother country. Here 
the ex[)eriment Avas tlioughtfully made, and surrounded by a wise fore- 
cast, that seemed to bid defiance to failure. The land was owned by the 
white race ; their farms were all in good order ; on tlicse farms there was 
a supply of good houses; in these houses tlic slaves had lived and reared 
their families ; these farms were supplied with the tools and machinery 
necessary for their successful cultivation, and to the use of these tools 
and this machinery the slaves had been accustomed since childhood. 
These farms, tlio houses on them, the tools and machinery, with the super- 
vision of the owner, were the capital which England said, and believed, 
was to be i-endered more valuable by fi'ee than by slave labor. On every 
farm the needed supply of labor was to bo found. A moral guarantee 
was given to the Liborer, that capital should not oppress him ; because the 
demand of capital for labor should always bo kept greater in thnt island 
than tlie supply. Of course, capital would be comjiellod to give the high- 
cat price for labor Avhicli a small return of profit would allow. 

What has been the result of this well-arranged experiment, to give 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 15 

freedom to tliis race of people ? Homes were ready for every one of them 
— homes too in which they were raised ; the highest price for labor 
awaited every one of them who would work; a powerful and sympathetic 
government threw her shield around them ; the avails of their labor were 
secured to them, with assurance doubly sure that merit should have every 
thing accorded to it which justice could command. I ask again, what has 
been the result of this well-arranged and costly experiment, to give free- 
dom to Ham's descendants? The result is, according to reports made to 
tlie English Parliament, (by abolition members sent in different years from 
their own body, to make a strict personal examination,) that the export 
of sugar in a short time had fallen off from upwards of six hundred mil- 
lions to two thousand pounds, and very soon after to nothing ; and that 
every other product of labor had shared the same fate. That the farms 
liad grown over in bushes ; that the ditches were filled up ; that the roads 
were impassable; that the machinery was rusting and rotting unused; 
tliiit the houses were surrounded with brushwood and trees Avhich nearly 
concealed them ; that thousands of negroes were hovering around the 
towns on the coast in destitution and starvation, whose existence was a 
mystery, as none could account for it; that otliers had retreated from 
civilization and tlie reach of law to the mountains, where they were living 
in savage and beastly degradation on roots and herbs, and that no price 
would secure labor. That the value of real estate was reduced, according 
to an assessment, twelve millions in a very sliort time ; in short, that the 
island and the negroes were ruined, unless efficient control in some form 
was re-assumed by their well-meaning but misguided benefactors. 

The second experiment, to which allusion has been made, is tlie one in 
Africa. TJie best materials to be found among the free negroes of the 
United States were selected for this experiment. 

Long and anxiously in our country had the highest order of minds, 
the purest philanthropy, the most disinterested patriotism, and the most 
self-sacrificing benevolence, sought to do good to this race of people, and 
to originate and put in operation a practical plan for elevating them to the 
blessings of a higher civilization, and a more enlarged freedom, or self- 
control. For accomplishing their desires, these great men, so distin- 
guished in the world's history for disinterested goodness, met in the city 
of Washington in 181G ; and, after mature deUberation, adopted a plan for 
carrying out their wislies by the agency of an organization which they 
called "The American Colonization Society." Their purpose was, to aid 
free persons of color to settle a colony or colonies in Africa. In pur- 
suance of this plan, they raised by voluntary contribution a sufficient fund, 
employed suitable agents to explore the coast, and finally purchased of the 
natives on that continent a territory large enough for the settlement of 
every negro, free and bond, in the United States. 

To this well selected home— rich in soil, salubrious in climate, and 
highly adapted to commerce — they commenced transporting such of Hani's 
descendants in the United States as were most advanced in civilization, 
public spirit, and intelligence. 

So great was the desire of Southern philanthropists to succc-ed in this 
experiment, that through their influence indirect aid was obtaiin-d from 
the Federal Government, to sustain the infant colony against the hostiio 
natives. Places of defence were built by the aid of our sailors, and the 
presence of our war ships afforded security against aggression. 

The passage of the emigrants to their new home, six months' provision 
when they arrived there, lands surveyed and ready for settlement, hos- 
pitals for the sick, and medical aid for their assistance, were all thought- 
fully arranged and secured to them by these noble-hearted men. But the 
above catalogue of bounty falls far short of the whole-souled benevolenco 
and forethought which characterized their efforts. The society and its 



16 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

influence secured for the colonists all kinds of tools to cultivate their 
fields, carts and wagons for the use of tlieir farms, steam mills to saw 
their lumber, to grind their grain, and to manufacture their cane into 
sugar and molasses, draft animals to plougli their laud, arms to defend 
their persons by land, and ships fur their commerce by sea. 

They provided for them a government free of charge, and secured for 
them, either directly or indirectly, school-houses and teachers for their 
children, churches in which to worship God, Bibles and preachers to teach 
them the way to heaven, books filled with instruction on all suitable sub- 
jects, printing-presses to diffuse knowledge, clothing for their bodies, and 
afiectionate and enlightened counsel for their minds. Thousands of liearts, 
in all parts of our country, ascended to God for their success, and followed 
t^em to their new homes, in every form of benevolence. Our. Govern- 
ment has indirectly secured them against hostility and violence, at an 
expense, if fairly estimated, that would reach many millions of dollars. 
Every motive was quickened into activity which could be awakened in 
their hearts, for the regeneration of Africa, and their own progress in 
Christian civilization. 

Could a better theatre have been selected — could better materials have 
been secured to occupy it — could wiser and better counsellors have been 
selected on the globe, to guide their infant movements in the mission of 
self-improvement and African redenjption? 

The noblest branch of Japheth's descendants, who had been so long 
accustomed to progress on this continent, were slow to doubt the success 
of this experiment, and could not patiently and wisely weigli the evidence 
time began to furnish, that its success was doubtful. Whether by design 
or not, discouraging facts were withheld from the public, and flattering 
pictures of success were given to the world. 

Our country was made familiar by the press with comparisons between 
this and other colonizing experiments, with a large balance in favor of 
Liberia. Yet in 1843, more than twenty years after the settlement of the 
colony, their statistics showed that the average quantity of land cultivated 
in this agricultural colony (including town lots) was about one-third of an 
acre per head; and that not a single draft animal, plougli, v.-ngon, or cart, 
was used at that time for any purpose ; that no farming tool was used 
except a bill-hook and hoe. That the machinery sent them to saw their 
lumber, grind their grain, and manufacture tlieir cane into sugar and mo- 
lasses, and tlie tools sent them to cultivate their lands, were tlicn rusting 
and rotting unused. The colonists have at all times affirmed that the soil 
was exceedingly productive, yet their custom-house, at that time, reported 
not a sinclc article exported from Liberia, which was produced by the 
labor of tlie colonists. The articles fiu' which their soil was peculiarly 
adapted, such as tobacco, breadstufts, cotton, coffee, sugar, molasses, po- 
tatoes, &o., Vf-cre imported from abroad, and so was their meat. All these 
articles comnumded high prices in their own market, prices which ought 
to have induced their cultivation by any human being willing to labor. 

After they had been adding to the outfit which they carried with them, 
the avails of tUeir own labor, and all that had been given them by their 
benefactors fiu- more tlian twenty years, the assessed value of their agri- 
cultural wealth was five dollars and a few cents per head. During the 
whole of this time their government had cost them nothing, and our navy 
had given them peace and security. 

Bfcatcmcnls however were in conflict, and its friends from time to time 
sought for information that certainly (M)uld be relied on. The last accred- 
ited atrcnt was Air. Cowcu from the' Kentucky Colonization Siiciety, who 
in 1858, after a sojourn of seven weeks, made a report. This report, with 
respect to agriculture, presents about the same state of facts as those of 
1843. The' colonists have always affirmed that the climate was healthy, 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 17 

yet with a rich soil to give them food, and a healthy climate to prolong 
their lives, and forty years to multiply tlieir race, tliey are now about one- 
fifth less in number than the original emigrants. 

The general view I have taken of Jamaica and Liberia is derived from 
sources tliat are entitled $o the highest credit; but my information has 
been obtained from ditferent sources and at different times, aud was not 
carefully preserved, supposing it could be obtained again at pleasure from 
historical records, and in chronological order; but in tiiis I was mistaken. 
There is nothing, however, in jioiut of: fact, from any quarter, tending to 
a different conclusion from that at wiiich I have arrived; tliat is, that 
this race of people have never as yet proved themselves capable, under 
any circumstances, of retaining in freedom wliat slavery gives them ; or 
of making progressive improvement, unless they are subject more or less 
to the control of tlie white race. For more tlian throe years, I have been 
trying to get statistical and historical facts concerning these experiments 
on foreign fields. But the library of Congress, the proprietors of book- 
stores, and some of the best informed of our public men, could give me 
no aid. This is a suggestive fact. " He that doeth truth, cumeth to the 
light," says Christ. Here are experiments that have been in progress for 
more than forty years, one of them by the most enlightened govermnent 
in tlie world, the other by many of the most enlightened individuals in 
the United States, that are almost covered up in darkness. Why is this? 

One of the ordinances of God is, that man shall eat bread in the sweat 
of his face ; that is, that he shall by labor contribute his share to the com- 
mon stock of supply for human wants. Christ has ordained that, in his 
kingdom, no man shall eat unless he work. We have sent Ham's descend- 
ants to Africa to raise and govern families, and to assume the higlier re- 
sponsibilities of organizing and governing states. From the bestliuthen- 
ticated facts we can gain, we are obliged to believe they are not qualified 
to do either, because they will not perform voluntary labor. Among 
Hani's race in freedom, here and elsewhere, there are but a few individuals 
who are willing to labor continuously for the support of a family. No 
people can multiply and raise families, unless they have homes, and are 
well fed. In the Nortliern States, in Jamaica, and in Liberia, the deaths 
among the free blacks steadily exceed the births. The slaves at the South 
multiply faster than the white race at the North. 

On the tield of experiment there is anotlier that deserves our notice. 
In Hayti, the slaves were emancipated by the Assembly of France in 
1793. In the same year they slaughtered the white r;ice, and appro- 
priated to themselves the invested wealth of the island. This island had 
been in a most prosperous condition before that event. Its exported pro- 
ductions had been immense. From that time its productions declined, and 
from the address of their President last year, they have reached the lowest 
level of laziness and poverty, are in a very degraded condition, as much, 
or more so than the original inhabitants when the island was discovered 
by Columbus in 1492. 

I have said the evidence which proves the unfitness of the African for 
freedom, stares us in the face as the sun in the heavens — that it amounts 
to a demonstration. That evidence has been passed in review before my 
reader. It consists first, in the experiment at the South, of giving free- 
dom to the most promising of the race. We of the South know tliat it 
has proved a curse to them. It has involved them in a little more than 
ten times the amount of crime, and a measure of poverty destructive of 
all comfort. An unwillingness to labor is almost universal among them. 

The North emancipated that portion of tlie race they lield in liondage. 
From the same unwillingness to labor they are too poor to raise families, 
are diminishing in numbers, and are degraded by an amount of crime 
which exceeds more than twelve times that of the white race. 
2 



18 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

In Jamaica, no wages can overcome their unwillingnesg to perform 
labor. 

In Liberia, where they have been literally held up by kindness and 
coniisel, and stimulated by the prospect of regenerating Africa, we see 
the same incurable disease. 

In Ilayti, we see them sharing all the evils which flow from self-con- 
trol and an unwillingness to labor, v/hile we see the slaves at the South, 
under the control of the white race, contented and well provided for, in- 
creasing in numbers, and improving in morals and intelligence. 

What I have written thus far was intended to disabuse men's minds as 
to the origin of government, as to its "resting on the consent of the gov- 
erned," — as to being "born free and equal," as to what constitutes slavery, 
as to what cor.stitutes freedom, as to the rule by which freedom or self- 
control is to be meted out ; as to the propriety, in civilized life, of subject- 
ing seven-eighths of the human family to the control of one-eighth ; as to 
the justice of according freedom to the white race at a given age, and 
withholding it from Africans for life ; as to the evidence furnished that 
they are an inferior race, and unfit for social and political freedom. 

In my next, slavery -will be tested T»y the Bible, as a question of morals 
;ind a divinely appointed element in the social and religious progress of 
the Avorld. 



CHAPTEK II. 

Teachings of the Bihle — The ivorld re-pcopled after the food by three distinct races 
— These races all descend from one man — One of these races devoted to Sla- 
■uery — The other two ordained by the Almighty to be their masters — Domestic 
Slavery sanctioned of God in the families of the Patriarchs — A runaway 
Slave returned to the owner by a special messenger from Heaven — A nation of 
the devoted race, who ivere free, enslaved by the Almighty — -A nation of the 
free race, who ivcre domestic slaveholders, liberated by the Almighty, from na- 
tional bo7idage to the devoted race — A Slave Code enacted by the Almighty — 
Slave markets designated by Him for the purchase of Slaves — The devoted race 
divided into nations — Seven of these nations devoted to utter destruction, the 
balance of them to Slavery — Divine authority, that Slavery is in harmony 
with the moral precept, which requires us '■''to love our neighbor as ourself'' — 
Tlie extent and character of Slavery when Christ came — All Governments at 
that time sanctioned Slavery — What Christ in person did, and taught his dis- 
ciples to do, in reference to governments. 

Having, in the preceding chapter, attempted to show that slavery is 
nothing more nor less than control by the will of another, and that 
this control is an indisjjensable necessity from our birth until our physi- 
cal, moral, and intellectual faculties arc suflicicntly developed for the re- 
sponsibilities of social and political life ; and that this development is gen- 
erally reached by the white race in about twenty-one years, and that it 
has never as yet been reached by the black race at any age, either on this 
continent or anywhere else, of -which we have knowledge ; and having 
assigned that as a true, proper, and sufficient reason for holding them un- 
der the control of the white race, both as a good to that race and them- 
selves, — I will now proceed to examine slavery by the IVible, as a question 
of morals. It will be of service to those w^ho reverence the Bible, but 
who do not know what it teaches, or where to look for its teachings on 
the subject of slavery, to sum u]) a portion of them on that subject, and 
refer to the books, chapter, and verses, where they may be found. 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMKNT, 19 

In Gen. ix. 25, 26, 27, you will find that soon after the flood Ham's 
descendants were doomed by the Almighty to a state of slavery, and that 
the descendants of Shem and Japhcth, by the same decree, were ordained 
to be their masters. From Ham descended fifteen nations, that settled be- 
tween the Euphrates and the Mediterranean. Seven of these nations were 
devoted to utter destruction, and their land given to Abraham's seed. 
See Deut. xx. 16, 17, and Dent. vii. 1, 2. The remaining eight nations 
were to be subjected by Abraham's seed to national bondage. See Deut. 
xi. 24, and xx. 10, 11. If they would not submit to national bondage, 
when summoned, then the males were all to be destroyed, and the females 
subjected to domestic hondage. See Deut. xx. 12 to 18. "When these 
eigiit nations were subjected by Abraham's seed to national londage^ their 
authority over them was not to stop at political subjection ; they were to 
expurgate these nations of idolatry for the true worship of Abraham's 
God. Deut. xii. 1, 2, 3. 

Abraham is the first domestic slaveholder mentioned in the Bible, and 
he is constantly held up to view as the most distinguished man for piety 
in the patriarchal age. There is a mistake frequently made by readers of 
the Bible, in supposing the servants of the patriarchs, and those servants 
instructed by the Apostles, in the New Testament, to be hired servants, 
and not hereditary slaves. I ask my reader to criticize the quotations as 
they are brought to view, by the references which follow, that he may see 
for himself that this mistake has no foundation to rest upon. 

"When Lot was taken prisoner, Gen. xiv. 14, Abraham owned three 
hundred and eighteen slaves that were born in his house, old enough to 
bear arms. From these data, according to the usual calculation, his entire 
slave family, at this time, must have been upwards of fifteen hundred. 
Soon after this, Abraham was driven by a famine into Egypt, when the 
items of his principal wealth are given us. Gen. xii. 15, 16. In this cata- 
logue his slaves form a conspicuous part as items of property. Soon after 
this, in a neighboring kingdom, Abraham received a large present from 
the reigning sovereign of the country. Among the valuable items of 
property which make np this gift, slaves again form a conspicuous part. 
See Gen. xx. 14, 15, 16. In default of children, Sarah, his wife, pre- 
vailed upon him to marry her slave maid Ilagar, an Egyptian woman who 
was given to Sarah by Pharaoh, King of Egypt. To marry slave wives, 
and to have a plurality of wives, were both lawful under. the law of the 
patriarchs. They were both made lawful four hundred years after by the 
law of Moses. This slave woman Hagar ran away, because of rough 
treatment to which she was subjected by her mistress, on account of her 
insolence. In the wilderness she was met by an Angel of God and or- 
dered back, with positive directions to submit herself under her mistress's 
hands. See Gen. xvi. 1 to 9. The conduct of God's messenger to_ this 
down-trodden female, as our Northern brethren would call her, differs 
very much from their conduct at the present time. That messenger or- 
dered the fugitive slave back to her owner— the Abolitionist refuses to 
deliver them up. 

In Gen. xvii. a covenant is mentioned. In this covenant God gave to 
Abraham's seed citizens! lip and the land of Canaan. This covenant se- 
cured both to Abraham's male posterity through Isaac, Jacob, and twelve 
of Jacob's sons, excluding from citizenship and the soil Ishmael, Abra- 
ham's first born son, and Esau, Isaac's first born son, and all others for- 
ever. Not one foot of this land could be alienated. It was entailed m 
perpetuity on Abraham's male descendants through the above line, and 
with it political responsibility and power. Political power and the soil 
were given exclusively to them. Abraham's other children and slaves 
were bound by circumcision to acknowledge and worship Abraham's God. 
Circumcision gave religious privileges, but not national identity, or politi- 



20 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

cal power. Abraham was bound to impose circumcision on his children 
and slaves. Hence Abraham circumcised, not only Ishmael his son, but 
himself and all his slaves that were born in his house, or that were bought 
with his money of any stranger. See Gen. xvii. 23 to 26. Qvcstion — 
Could our Northern brethren hold fellowship with this old slaveholder if 
he were to appear among them ? 

The next view which the Scriptures furnish us of this distinguished 
slaveholder and favorite of the Almighty, is the occasion he improves of 
getting a wife for his son Isaac. Isaac had been designated by the Al- 
mighty as the progenitor of the Messiah — in whom all the nations of the 
earth were to be blessed. See Gen. xxi. 12, and xxii. 1 to 18. 

Abraham intrusted this mission of getting a wife for Isaac, to the most 
distinguished servant he had. At an earlier period of Abraham's life, and 
before he had a child, he thought of making this servant, on account of 
his high qualities and sterling integrity, the heir of his whole estate. He 
now sends him on this delicate and important mission, under special in- 
struction. He requires him to take a solemn oath to follow his directions 
to the very letter. He puts him in possession of all the means he was to 
use to insure success ; jewels that were beautiful and costly for the lady, 
splendid presents for her family, and a catalogue of his wealth which he 
intended to give his son at his death. This estate the servant enumerated 
to the lady's family in the following words : " I am Abraham's servant, 
and the Lord hath blessed my master greatly, and he is become great; 
and he hath given hiui flocks and herds, and silver and gold, and men ser- 
vants, and maid servants, and camels, and asses. And Sarah, my master's 
wife, bare a son to my master when she was old ; and unto him hath he 
given all he hath." See Gen. xxiv. 34, 35, 3G. 

After this marriage of Isaac was consummated, Abraham married 
again, and had six sons by Keturah, besides his first-born son Ishmael by 
Hagar. Before his death, he sent these seven sons out of the country 
which God had given his posterity through Isaac. To these sons he made 
presents when he sent them away. But true to the message he sent by 
his servant to get a wife for Isaac, he gave to Isaac all that he had, and 
this included the land of Canaan which God had given him by promise. 
Gen. XXV. 5. To his other sons he gave gifts, and sent them away from 
Isaac, his son, (while he yet lived,) eastward, out of the promised land, 
unto tlie east cpuntry, and died in a good old age. Gen. xxv. 0, 7, 8. 

Question. — Can holding men and women in bondage, giving them to 
our children when we die, and sharing the honor they in part give us in 
the sight of God and men while we live, be sinful ? that is, if the word 
of God was written to teach us what sin is. 

Soon after Abraham's death, his son Isaac made a very distinguished 
figure upon the stage of the world. The historical notice given of him is, 
that he was " a prosperous man " — " reaping an hundred fold " from the 
land lie cultivated ; tliat he " waxed great," " went forward," " and 
grew until he became very great ; for he had possessions of flocks, and 
great store of .servants." The next account avc have of him is, that the 
citizens of the government under wliich he was living, envied him exceed- 
ingly. Why, says fanaticism, a tyrant who lives upon the sweat and blood 
of his fellow-man ought to be abhorred of God, and should be hated of 
men. Well, let us see how he stands with Abraham's God. He was then 
living in tlie kingdom of Gerar. The envy of his neighbors, who were 
citizens of this kingdom, made his home so disagreeable, that he removed 
thence, and went to Becrsheebn, grieved in heart that a peojilc to whom 
he had done no harm should invade his home, endanger his life, and the 
lives of his servants — violently wrest his i)roperty from liim, and render 
it unsafe for him to dwell among them. See Gen. xxvi. 12 to 23. But 
the Lord ai)pearcd to him the same night, after these painful demonstra- 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 21 

tions of unconquerable envy and hatred liad caused him to separate him- 
self from this people, and said to him, " I am the God of Abraham thy 
father; fear not " the malignity and lawlessness of these men, "for I am 
with thee, and will bless thee, and multiply thy seed." Gen. xxvi. 23, 
24, 25. 

The lawlessness and malignity of these people were enough to awaken 
the fears of this princely slaveholder. We are living under analogous cir- 
cumstances. While we may not have for our comfort the direct assurance 
of this great slaveholder, that God will be with us, and bless us; yet, 
through patience and comfort of the Scriptures, we niay have hope that 
he will. 

Isaac had two sons, who were twins. He was led by a prophetic im- 
pulse to make a public transfer of the blessings of the Abrahamic cove- 
nant to one of these sons before his death. Under the influence of partial 
feelings and common usage, he was about to transfer these blessings to 
Esau. But means were used by which they were unintentionally, on his 
part, ti'ansferred to Jacob. Isaac was duly assured by Divine impulse, 
after the deed was done, that it was God's will that Jacob should have 
tills inheritance ; and under prophetic inspiration he said to Jacob, " Let 
people serve thee, and nations bow down to thee : be lord over thy breth- 
ren, and let thy mother's sons bow down to thee : cursed be every one that 
curseth thee, and blessed be every one that blesseth thee." Gen. xxvii. 

Jacob's subsequent history shows him to have been one of the greatest 
slaveholders of the age. If my views were those of an Abolitionist, I should 
be obliged to hate the God of .Jacob, and instead of saying as God 'did, 
" Cursed be every one that curseth tliee^^'' my abolition views would com- 
pel me to say, " Cursed be every one that hlesseth thee.'''' 

Soon after this transaction of blessing Jacob, Isaac, his father, called 
Jacob to him, gave him a charge to take a wife from a God-fearing fam- 
ily, and not from an idolatrous people, and then sent him away with this 
inspired benediction : " God Almighty bless thee, and multiply thee ; and 
give the blessings of Abraham to thee, and to thy seed with thee ; that 
thou mayest inherit the land wherein thou art a stranger, which God gave 
to Abraham." Gen. xxviii. 1 to 4. 

Jacob, thus charged and thus blessed by his inspired father, went to 
Padan Aram, married, and lived there twenty years. The night after he 
left his father's house to go to Padan Aram, God ajjpeared to him and 
gave him this assurance : " I am the Lord God of Abraliam thy father, and 
the God of Isaac ; the land whereon thou liest, to thee will I give, and to 
thy seed," (now mark the caution used here, and in every other place, to 
designate the heirs of the land of Canaan : they must be Abraham's male 
descendants through Jacob,) " and thy seed shall be as the dust of the 
earth ; and thou shalt spread abroad to the West, and to the East, and to 
the North, and to the South ; and in thee, and in thy secd^ shall all the 
nations of the earth be blessed." Gen. xxviii. 13, 14,' 15. 

When Jacob, twenty years after this, was thinking of leaving Padan 
Aram, where he had been badly treated by his father-in-law, this is the 
account we have of him : " The man increased exceedingly, and had much 
cattle, and maid servants, and men servants, and camels, and asses." Gen. 
XXX. 43. This property in slaves which he accumulated in Padan Aram, 
and that which he inherited from his father soon after, made him a 
princely slaveholder, as his fatliers had been. In all these catalogues of 
property owned by Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, servants occupy the ]>lacc 
of chattels. They were bought with their money ; they were called 
" their money ; " they were raised in their families, and were passed as an 
inheritance to their children in perpetuity. Plired servants are carefully 
distinguished from hereditary, or bond servants. 

During the life of the patriarch Jacob, we are presented with a very 



22 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

suggestive fact in favor of enslaving a people for their own good, who 
are not qualified for freedom. A branch of Ham's race occupied, at that 
time, the fruitful valley of the Nile in Egypt. They were liable, by lazi- 
ness, negligence, and a want of forethought and energy, to famine, owing to 
a casualty of frequent occurrence, which caused a failure in the annual crop. 

To teach Ham's race a lesson, and through them the world a lesson, 
the Almighty allowed Jacob's son, Joseph, a descendant of Shem, to be 
sold into slavery in that kingdom. It was Shem's mission to preserve 
the knowledge, and make known the character of the true God to all na- 
tions. Shem was sent to Egypt at this time, in the person of Joseph, not 
only to make known the character, attributes, and perfections of the true 
God, but to make known the character and elements of good government 
among them. Joseph soon convinced Pharaoh, when brought into his 
presence, that essential elements were wanting in his government, that 
wise forethought, and an energetic control over his subjects would save 
them from this national calamity with which they were aflBicted ; that 
this government must be changed, and that his subjects were not quali- 
fied for self-control, or freedom. Accordingly, under impulses awakened 
in Pharaoh's heart, this young man was invested with authority by Pha- 
raoh, to change the political structure of the government, by enslaving 
the persons, and purchasing the property, real and personal, of the whole 
kingdom, with the exception of the priesthood. He secured for Pharaoh 
an absolute right to the control, service, and labor of this people forever. 
A new arrangement was immediately made by Joseph for the more effi- 
cient control of labor, and for a careful preservation of the surplus. 

This was done by bringing a number of families together in cities, 
from one end of tlie kingdom to the other, so that a fcAV competent over- 
seers (men of skill, enterprise, and authoritative energy) could supervise 
the labor and the civil conduct of a great many persons. By this change 
labor was well husbanded, a bountiful supply was secured for the wants 
of the people, a surplus was put in store for contingencies, and a regular 
supply of means laid by for the support of the government. 

The authority for all this is to be found in Gen. xli. to xlvii., inclusive. 

Subjecting this people to slavery, was God's Avork. He, by a special 
providence of seven years' continuance, brought them into a condition 
that unavoidably subjected them to hereditary slavery, or to death by 
famine, if they refused submission to it. Now let me ask all well-mean- 
ing, honest-minded men, this question. If slavery be a sin, as the Aboli- 
tionists say it is, then why did the Almighty take advantage of the condi- 
tion into which he brouglit this poeple, to deprive them of liberty, and 
subject them to slavery ? I Avould answer this qner-tion by saying, God 
designed it for their good, and to teach them, and all others through them, 
that slavery was a greater good to any people than freedom, without 
proper qualifications to use freedom. All of this is written in the Bible 
for oiu- learning — that we when called upon, in the providence of God, to 
arrange the best form of government for men who prove themselves 
incapable of self-government, (as the Africans do among us, and every- 
where else with but few individual exceptions,) that we do not suffer 
ourselves to be led away by the infidelity which sanctions univei-sal 
freedom and equality — a freedom and an equality, of which the Bible 
knows nothing; nor by a false humanity which takes away a good from 
a i)Cople, and puts an evil in the i)lace of it— as this infidelity in the 
United States seeks to do, by taking from the African the ])rotection and 
control of the Avliite race, and leaving him to jjcrish by giving him 
freedom to do nothing — which is the only freedom ho desires. 

The difference betwei-n freedom and slavery to this race of people, 
when tlic conipari:M)n is made between the masses in slavery hero and 
freedom in Africa, is almost as great as the imaginative difference 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 23 

between the two future worlds of the Bible. The difference is the fruit 
of slavery. By the fruit the tree should be judged. 

The seven years' famine which was the occasion of exalting -Joseph to 
the control of Egypt, brought his father Jacob, and Jacob's other eleven 
sons, into the same kingdom, that they miglit avoid starvation by famine 
in the land of Canaan. A beautiful and productive portion of the land 
was assigned to them by the King. Here tliey became a nation, (Deut. 
ix. 84 :) and enjoyed great prosperity and courtly favor for a long time ; 
but at length a new King arose who knew nothing of Joseph, 

The rapid increase of Jacob's posterity in Egypt awakened the fears 
of the new King, and he subjected them as a nation to bondage, and their 
male children to death. Now, let my reader remember that this was not 
domestic bondage, for they were the owners of domestic slaves themselves ; 
they were literally a slaveholding nation, and so remained until their 
exodus. While they were compelled by Pharaoh to support themselves 
and their families — as their political master, he made very lieavy drafts 
upon them for labor, and subjected them to unreasonable and cruel 
oppression by overtaxing their physical energies. This, we are told, 
was grievous to be borne, yet it "yielded the peaceable fruits of right- 
eousness to them when exercised thereby." It led these slaveholders 
to call upon the Lord, in singleness of heart, for deliverance. The Lord 
heard their prayer, and delivered them from this cruel oppression — not, 
however, as modern deliverers seek deliverance for domestic slaves who 
are not oppressed ; that is, by spears, Sharpe's rifles, conflagration, rapine 
and plunder. The lesson God taught this people by Moses is the lesson 
he teaches us by the Gospel; that is, that inflicting vengeance upon 
nations belongs to God — that we are not to avenge ourselves. These 
oppressed national bondmen peaceably petitioned the throne, under God's 
direction, for a release ; and after the Almighty had endorsed their peti- 
tions by national judgments on Pharaoh, they were allowed to march 
peaceably out of Egypt with the consent of Pharaoh, their national master, 
carrying their own domestic slaves with them, without having received 
the permission of God individually, or as a nation, to perpetrate a deed 
of violence, or to ofl:er an indignity to Pharaoh, or to any of their national 
oppressors. How does this comport with plans and efforts to release 
our domestic slaves who have no oppression to complain of? The domes- 
tic slaves of the Jews in Egypt had none to complain of. The oppressed 
in Egypt were masters — their bondage was political ; from this God 
delivered them, and they marched peaceably, as a nation, to the Red Sea. 
Pharaoh pursued them — and here God destroyed him for a breach of his 
covenant to let them go. They marched through the Red Sea, as on dry 
land, and soon stood at the base of Mt. Sinai, where they received a moral 
constitution from the mouth of God himself; and soon after, through Moses, 
the laws ordaining and regulating, according to God's will, their system 
of domestic slavery, and their civil, social, and religious institutions. Here 
we see the Almighty displaying his vengeance upon the political oppres- 
sors of a nation of domestic slaveholders, while he writes his approval of 
their domestic slavery, by giving their slaves a place at the table of the 
passover the night these masters were delivered from political bondage, 
and their slaves at the same moment from the destroying angel for their 
masters' sake. 

Their genealogies were carefully examined, and the male descendants 
of Abraham through Jacob, Avho could prove tlieir descent, were formally 
recognized and reorganized as the nation to whom God had promised the 
laud of Canaan. They numbered six hundred thousand fighting men. See 
Num. i. This nation voluntarily accepted the covenant God made with 
their fathers, and promised obedience to it. Exo. xix. 1 to 8. 

The night they left Egypt the passover was instituted. It was to be 



24 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

a memorial of their national deliverance. The qualifications for its recipi- 
ents are carefully worded in Exo. xii. 43, 44, 45. " A foreigner and an 
hired servant shall not eat thereof; bnt every man's servant that is 
bouf^ht for money, when thou hast circumcised him, then shall he eat 
thereof." This law proves Jacob's descendants to have been a nation of 
slaveholders when they left Egypt. They had been a slaveholding 
people during all the intervening time, from Abraliam's day until they 
went down fnto Egypt with their father Jacob during the seven years 
of famine. This covers a period of more than four hundred and fifty 
years. Among the patriarchs of this period, their slaves are declared in 
the Bible to be, " their money ; " they had bought them with their 
money, or they raised them in their families— and they were heritable 
property in perpetuity. Levit. xxv. 6. Slaves were carefully distinguished 
from liired servants and free men. And in tlie moral law, or ten com- 
mandments, delivered in less than three months after they left Egypt, 
their slaves are registered by the Almighty in the tenth commandment 
as their property, in common with other articles of property which were 
not to be coveted. See Exo. xx. 17. And in the fourth of the ten com- 
mandments rest from labor on the Sabbath was secured to these slaves. 
Exo. XX. 10. And now I ask again, how can any man who puts forth claims 
to Bible knowledge, solemnly declare and teach the world to believe, 
that the Bible makes slavery to be the greatest of all sins? Here is a 
miraculous interposition to deliver a nation of domestic slaveholders from 
a state of national bondage to which they had been subjected in Egypt. 
Can we believe God would do this, and sanction their holding slaves, if 
blavery was a great sin ? 

It may seem strange to an abolitionist (for they appear not to know 
what is in the Bible) that the Almighty should pollute His lips, in the 
blaze of glory that surrounded him, (at the time He proclaimed the ten 
commandments,) by acknowledging and legalizing a relation among men, 
that makes property of a fellow-being. They profess to believe this to be 
the greatest of sins. But their surprise will not be lessened when they 
discover, that in the next breath after enunciating the moral law, or tea 
commandments, the God of Abraham commences to deliver a body of 
law for the Jewish mition, the very first utterance of which enlarges the 
field in which they might lawfully secure a greater supply of slave labor. 
The abolitionists of our day have been laboring to dry up the sources 
of supply; but the Almighty, in the first utterance of the law designed 
for the organization and regulation of their social and peculiar institutions, 
enlarges the boundary in which they may obtain a greater supply of 
slave labor. And in so doing has furnished the world a lesson lor their 
instruction. They ought to study it. 

For more than five hundred years Abraham's descendants had been 
domestic slaveholders; but until this time the Almighty had never given 
them his sanction to enslave their own bretliren, and to make property 
of them. But He now opens a new source of supply for slave labor in 
several classes of Abraham's descendants. In the first place, He authorized 
Abraham's poor female children to be sold into hereditary bondage by 
their fathers. The proof of this is found in Exo. xxi. 7, and Dent. xv. 
17. " If a man sell his daughter to be a maid servant, she shall not 
go out, as the men servants do." Again : He authorized the poor malo 
descendants of Abraham to sell themselves and their wives into perpetual 
bondage. See Dent. xv. 12 to 17. And He allowed Abraham's male 
descendants when ])oor to be sold, or to sell tliemselves, tlieir wives, and 
their cliildren, into bondage for six years. If they had no wife when 
thev were sold, then the Almighty allowed their master to give them 
one^of his slave women to be their wife. If, at the end of six years, tho 
man who came in witli a wife and children chose to re-assume freedom, 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 25 

then he with his wife and children were entitled to it ; and also to a pro- 
vision made by the same law, for housekee[)ing again. 

But in the case of him vviio had married liis master's slave, she and 
her children remained the property of the master. If either of these 
men, after an experience of six years in slavery, preferred hereditary 
bondage to freedom, then the Almighty allowed them to alienate their 
freedom, and become slaves forever. Exo. xxi. 2 to 6. "If thou buy 
an Hebrew servant, six years he shall serve; and in the seventh he shall 
go out free for nothing. If he came in by himself, he shall go out by 
himself; if he were married, then his wife shall go out with him. If his 
master have given him a wife, and she have borne him sons or daughters, 
the wife and her children shall be her master's, and he shall go out 
by himself;" (and in Dent, xv. IG, 14, 18, the master is bound to furnish 
him for housekeeping again.) " I3ut if the servant shall plainly say, I 
love my master, my wife, and my cliildren ; I will not go out free ; then 
his master shall bring him unto the judges ; he shall also bring him to 
the door, or unto the doorpost; and his master shall bore his ears 
through with an awl ; and he shall serve him forever." 

These persons belonged to classes, which will be found in all civilized 
society until time ends. The persons who make up tlicse classes, embody 
moral purity in the outset of life ; but are without the qualifications to 
contend successfully with the difficulties of securing a comfortable support 
— and hence they are exposed to the temptations which assail social virtue 
and moral purity with great severity. For the social comfort and moral 
security of these classes of his peculiar people, these laws were enacted* by 
the Almighty. 

There were other classes among Abraham's seed, that vrere subjected 
to slavery. These classes, also, have been found in civilized society in all 
ages and countries. They are criminal classes. For the good of these 
criminals Vi^iiose punishment was short of death, and for the good of 
society, no human legislation has ever equalled the law of God. The 
classes he designed to correct by this legislation, included such persons as 
broke into houses — that stole cattle, sheep, or other stock — that trespassed 
on their neighbors' fields or forests — that appropriated to their own use 
whatever they could stealthily get hold of — that swiiulhjd by false pre- 
tences — that contracted debts without the means, or intention of paying 
them — in short, all who proved themselves unfit to be trusted with 
freedom. 

The object to be accomplished by these laws was to dry up the sources 
of moral miasma ; neutralize this poison ; improve the morals of the cul- 
prits, and preserve the health of the social body. One great principle 
lies at the bottom of all this legislation, which was enacted of God to 
relieve society — first, of criminals ; secondly, to correct the criminal 
classes — and third, to save the virtuous poor from that condition of pov- 
erty which leads to crime. This great principle, the abolitionists say, 
is the very essence of sin. It is the principle which makes the service, 
or labor of a human being, to be money or pi-operty. By the aid of this 
jn-inciple, labor was made a legal tender in the payment of debts — it was 
declared to be money, and by this money the Almighty secured in the 
first place, for the poor female children of Abraham's sons, social equality 
in good families, and a good home for life. Their master was authorized 
to marry them himself, or to marry them to his sons, or to any male 
descendant of Abraham ; thus, poor female children were shielded by their 
masters from vice, and were made valuable contributors to the general 
welfare. 

The owners of capital thus secured by the law, in buying the female 
labor for life, would give their capital a form for the profitable employ- 
meut of such labor — and that to an extent, that would equal the supply of 



26 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

it. Tims, their cities would not become Sodoms. And thus, from poor 
young females — the most demoralizing of all classes in exclusive freedom, 
a healthy tone Avould be given to society, and a supply of female labor 
secured for the spindle and distaff, to meet the demands of taste, and to 
supply the comforts of life. How ditierent is such a result from that of 
capital emploved in some of our northern cities ; where it is used to 
secure and furnish from one to one hundred or more rooms, into 
which these poor females can be seduced to enter, that they may secure 
a return for the capital of their employer, by a course of conduct which 
leaves the community a Sodom — emasculated of virtue, and a moral 
stench upon the face of the earth. Ten thousand of these poor innocents, 
it is said, are thus sacrificed annually in one single northern city in our 
Union. From thence they are shipped like merchandise to every place . 
where a market can be found. They are compelled annually to give place 
to a new supply. To subject them to domestic slavery in good families— 
to render them useful to society— to give them in marriage to raise families 

and thus to ])reserve the moral health and social happiness of the com- 

nranity, would be the greatest of sins, according to the morals and politi- 
cal standard of the abolitionists. 

In the second place, the poor man and his wife, unable from the 
want of skill to succeed against competition, were allowed of God to 
throw off all anxious care, to sit down in social quietude, and to enjoy 
the provision secured by labor to domestic bondmen for life. The inno- 
cent poor thus provided for, the future danger to society thus guarded 
against— the Ahnighty, by the aid of this great money principle, next 
subjected the criminal classes to a more efficient remedy, and society to 
a less costly correction, than that of building penitentiaries and work- 
houses, and employing incompetent overseers at high wages to look over 
these criminals, whose moral renovation could not be expected as a result 
from their condition. Instead of such an agency, He subjected them to 
the control of domestic masters, who were interested in their labor and 
deportment, and who could use magisterial authority at pleasure for the 
correction of all insubordination. Upon crime he placed a very high 
money price. For a few stolen articles the prices to be paid by the 
criminal are specified : for an ox, the price of five oxen, &c. These 
specifications were the basis of a general principle, by which the judges 
were to be governed in the punishment of offences not specified. This 
money, vrhen the criminal was poor, was raised by the sale of his labor, 
and was to pay the injured party for his loss, and the State for her ex- 
pense. To raise this money the State sold the culprit's service or labor, 
and passed to the purchaser a right to control him by all necessary and 
proper means. These means the State furnished Avhen necessary. 

By this system of making labor a merchantable commodity, the pro- 
ductive resources of the State were increased, the personal and property 
rights of the people were secured, prolific sources of vice and crime were 
dried up, and the morals of the community preserved and strengthened. 
But, according to the abolition standard of morals and unalienable rights, 
God nmst be the greatest sinner in the universe if he be the author of 
such laws as the above. John Brown is eulogized as a martyr for resist- 
ing to the death such laws as I have quoted, or referred to from the 
Bible. He left many behind him, who arc boiling with rage against all 
such enactments. 

I will now pass by these laws of the Almighty for a supply of slave 
labor among Abraham's seed, where it had never before been furnished, 
to the law of God, which opens the markets of the world to his dcsc-end- 
ants, in quest of this labor. He tells them in Levit. xxv. 44, 45 : "Both 
thy bondmen and thy bondmaids, which thou shalt have, shall be of the 
heathen that arc round about you ; of them shall yc buy bondmen and 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 27 

bondmaids. ^Moreover, of tlie children of the strangers tliat do sojourn 
among you, of thorn shall ye buy, and of their families that are with you 
which they begat in your land: and they shall be your possession. And 
ye shall take them as an inheritance for your children after yon to inherit 
them for a possession : they shall be your bondmen forever." By this 
law the markets of the nations in all directions were opened of God for 
the purchase of slaves by Abraham's seed ; except the seven nations of 
Canaan. These seven nations were to be entirely destroyed without 
mercy by God's command, in Deut. xx. IG, 17. "But of the cities of 
tliese people, which the Lord thy God doth give thee for an inheritance, 
thou shalt save alive nothing that breatheth. But thou shalt utterly 
destroy them, namely : the Hittites, and the Amorites ; the Canaanites, 
and the Perrizites ; the Hivites, and the Jebusites ; as the Lord thy God 
hath commanded thee." And again, in Deut. vii. 2, they are commanded 
" to make no covenant with them, nor show mercy nnto them." 

The law which opened to the Israelites all the national markets 
around them, docs not stop until it gives them the divine sanction to pur- 
chase slaves of all the strangers who might choose to dwell among them. 
These strangers loved tlie Israelites, and therefore followed them from 
Egypt. These strangers shared largely in the Divine favor. Three sev- 
eral times the Israelites are commanded not " to vex or oppress them ; 
but to love them as themselves." Exo. xxii. 21 ; Levit. xix. 33, 3-i; Deut! 
xxiv._14. Yet God allows the Israelites to buy and hold these stran- 
gers in hereditary bondage, as an inheritance to their children forever. 
Here \°, 2yroof positke, without interference, that to luij and liold a person 
in slavery^ harmonizes with loving that person as ourself. God commands 
the Israelites to lore tliese strangers as themsehes^ and at the same time 
authorizes them to huij and hold them as slaves. 

Can any right-minded man survey these great facts of the Bible and 
then bring himself to believe that slavery is sinful ; or, that it is not in 
harmony with God's moral perfections, or the obligation He has laid on 
men to love each other ? Freedom was a curse to the lawless portion of 
Abraham's seed. Tlieir freedom was a curse also to the State, and there- 
fore God directed the State to take it from them, and subject them to 
slavery. 

Freedom to Abraham's poor and exposed female children, seems also 
to have been a curse to them and the community ; God, therefore, in 
mercy to them and the State, allowed their jsarents to invest them with 
the advantages of domestic slavery. To Abraham's male descendants who 
had families, without the skill to provide for them, He extended the same 
advantages. 

All these classes were benefited by slavery. The idolatrous class was 
better governed, better protected, better fed and clothed, better instructed 
for this life and that to come, shared in social sympathy and intelligence, 
unknown to them in heathenism, and were greatly favored by the Al- 
mighty in allowing them to stand in such a relation to a people whoso 
God was the eternal I AM. And does not truth compel us to say all this 
of the African race on this continent? These Africans were the most 
degraded, superstitious, and ignorant of all the heathen races on earth. 
By domestic slavery they have been brought into a progressive state of 
civilization, and to share largely in the blessings of the Gospel. 

The Almighty, in the law which sanctioned slavery, guarded the slave 
agamst cruelty and limited the master's discretion to the use of necessary 
and proper means for controlling his slave. For crueltv, the master was 
responsible, and the slave was released from bondage. The laws of God 
for the government and protection of freemen and slaves, furnish a very 
instructive lesson to all honest-minded men who reverence the Bible, in 
ascertaining the truth of the infidel doctrine, that all men are born free 



28 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

and equal. For tlie benefit of such well-meaning men, I will quote a few 
of these laws : If a man maimed his own slave, by knocking out his eye, 
or his tooth, the slave was to be freed, as a punishment upon the master 
for this wanton act of personal violence, which was neither proper nor 
necessary, as a means of securing subordination. Exo. xxi. 26, 27. But 
for the same offence committed against a free person, the offender had to 
pay an eye for an eye, and a tooth for a tooth, as tlie penalty. Levit. 
xxiv. 19,20. Question: Will these two laws carry the idea of freedom 
and equality to an honest mind ? Again. If a slave lost his life by an 
OS running at large, and known by the owner of the ox to be dangerous, 
the owner of the ox had to pay thirty shekels of silver to the master, as 
a compensation for the loss of his slave. Exo. xxi. 32. But if tlie per- 
son so killed was free, then the owner forfeited his life. Exo. xxi. 29. 
Question : Do these two laws of the Almighty teach the freedom and 
equality of modern infidelity ? Again. Under the law of God the male 
descendants of Abraham v/ere allowed to marry slave women. If under 
this law a man married his own slave, his children by her were free ; 
but if he married the slave of another man, his children by her were the 
slaves of her owner. Exo. xxi. 1-4. By this law, Ave see that a free 
man's children may be born hereditary slaves. Question : What support 
do we get here for the infidel doctrine, " that all men are born free and 
equal." Again. Under this law, if a slave woman was engaged to be 
married to a free man — for unfaithfulness, she was subjected to stripes, 
and her seducer to the penalty of a sheep, as a sacrifice for sin. Levit. 
xix. 20 to 22. But for the same oftence, a free woman and her seducer 
forfeited tlieir lives. Deut. xxi. 23, 24. Question : Can any man feel 
as nmcb justified by the Bible in believing all men are born free and 
equal, as I feel in furnishing him Avith the means, and then requesting 
hhn to use them for the correction of his error ? 

This body of slave law was in force among Abraham's seed until the 
coming of Christ— a period of fifteen hundred years. During this long 
period'they disobeyed the Ahniglity in a great many ways. His judg- 
ments were sent upon them for their disobedience. These judgments 
were intiicted for causes that are on record in the Old Testament. Before 
inflicting these judgments, the Almighty raised up projjhets to make 
known to them theii- sins, — to warn them of their danger, — and to exhort 
them to repentance. In all the indictments filed against them by the 
projiliets, there is not one for holding slaves in bondage. The law au- 
thorized them to hold their brethren in bondage for six yenrs, and it 
autlujrized them to hold the heathen in bondage forever. It required 
them at the end of the six years to restore their Hebrew brethren to free- 
dom again. For the violation of this last law, Avhicli required them to 
restore their Hebrew brethren to freedom again at the end of six years, 
the ])rophet Jeremiah was sent to them with ihis message: "Thus, saith 
the Lord, the God of Israel, I made a covenant with your fathers in the 
day that I brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, out of the house 
of bondmen, saying. At the end of seven years let ye go every man his 
brother, an Hebrew wliieh hath been sold unto thee, and when he hath 
served thee six years, tliou shalt let him go free from thee : but your 
fatliers hearkened not unto me, neither inclined their ear; therefore, thus 
saith the Lord, Ye have not hearkened unto me in proclaiming liberty 
every one to his brutlier, and every man to his ntig!i])or; behold, I pro- 
claim a liberty to you, saith the Lord, to the sword, to the pestilence, 
and to the famine, and I will make you to be removed into all the king- 
doms of the earth." Tliis judgment was sent upon tliem for violating the 
law wliich aiitliorized them to enslave their ITi-brew brethren for six 
years, written in Exo. xxi. 2. The judgment pronounced against them 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 29 

by Jeremiah the prophet, for violating this law, will be found in Jer. 

XXX1\ . Lo to 1/. 

In Levit. xix. 13, the law for the wages of free labor declares • " The 
wages of him that is hired shall not abide with thee all night nntil the 
morning. For the violation of this law the Lord proclaimed tliis indg- 
ment by the month ot Jeremiah against Jehoiakim, son of Josiah kin- of 
Judah: ^\oe unto him that bnildeth his house by unrighteousness,"and 
hischambers by wrong; that useth his neighbor's service without waWs " 
(no. his slave s service without wages, but his neighbor's service without 
wage^S) and giyeth him not for his xvork ; that saith, I will build me a 
wide house, and large chambers, and cutteth him out windows; and it is 
ceiled with cedar and painted with vermilion. Shalt thou reign because 
thou closest thyself in cedar ? Did not thy father eat and drink, and do 
judgment and justice, and then it was well with him ? He iudo-ed the 
cause of the poor and needy ; " (to see that their wages were paid to'^them ;) 
hen It was well with him : was not this to know me, saith the Lord? 
But thine eyes and hme heart are not but for thy covetousness and fo • 
oppression and violence to do if. Therefore, thus saith the Lord con- 
cerning Jehoiakim, They shall not lament for him, he shall be buried' with 
the burial of an ass, drawn and cast forth beyond the gates of Jerusalem." 
Jer. xxii. 13 to 19, inclusive. 

The oppression of the hireling, in not having his wages paid to him is 
one of the great sins of the Old Testament. The abolitionlts gathe^-'up 
all the passages in which this sin of oppression is spoken of, and apply 
of tlS\ .?'"H'7" skvoholders. They profess to believe that the slave 
fL ^-n " '■' ^*^^i?"^f^^ °f 7.«g^.« f*^^- I'is labor; to which, according to 
the Bible, he IS entitled as a hireling ; overlooking, at the same time the 
astonishing and remarkable fact, that, as a class, thev receive a nges in the 
shape of a comfortable home for life, and a supply for their wants that is 
equalled by no such number of free laborers on the o-Iobe 

. For the beuetit of men who wish to know the truth of the Bible on 
this subject, I will add a little for their instruction. In the first nlace 
the hire mg of the Bil)le, who is not to be oppressed, and whose onpresl 
sioD is the great sm of the Bible, is the free man of the Bible, or the man 
Avhom the Bible declares to be free-and not the hereditary bondman of 
All ?i'- ' t f ™^^" ^^'^^? IS (declared by the Bible to be his master's money 
All this will be seen in the legislative protection given by the law of 
Moses to three classes of laborers. These three different classes of labor- 
ers are plainly set forth in that law. Two of these classes were created 
by that aw— the other class by their own free choice. The two cla'^ses 
created by the law Avere slaves— the other class consisted of free persons 
who hired themselves to work for wages. One of these slave classes were 
Abraham s descendants, who were sold under the sanction of the law into 
slavery for six years. At the end of this time they were released by the 
law from this slavery, and restored to their freedom again The other 
class of these slaves were heathens, who were bought for money accord- 
ing to the law in xxv. Leviticus, and were made by that law to be their 
masters money, and to be hereditary bondmen and bondwomen to him 
and his children forever. 

For the class of free laborers who hired themselves for wa"-es a law 
was enacted, (which has been quoted,) that j-equired their w.^ges to bo 
paid to them promptly. For the violation of this law God threatened to 
visit, not the employer only, but the whole nation with severe iudff- 
mencs— thereby making all the individuals of the nation responsible for 
the due executum of this law. For the violation of this law. Kin"- Jehoi- 
akim and the nation were visited with the awful judgment I have pre- 
viously stated from Jer. xxii. 13, 19. ^ 
For the protection of Abraham's seed, who were in bondage for six 



30 SLAVERY AND GOVERKMENT. 

years, a law was passed Tv'hich exempted them in the first place from 
the rigorous treatment of heathen slaves, Levit. xxv. 39 to 43, and re- 
stored them in the second place to freedom again at the end of the six 
years. For a violation of this latter section of the law, God threatened 
the whole nation with judgments, thereby making the nation, as well as 
the master, responsible for retaining Abraham's seed in bondage beyond 
the six years, except in cases vvhere they voluntarily chose to subject 
themselves to hereditary bondage, after the six years were ended. This 
law, as I have before stated, was violated by Zedekiah, king of Judah, 
and by others through his example. For this sin the nation Avas over- 
thrown, Jerusalem destroyed, Zedekialrs sons and nobles slain l>efore 
his eyes, Zedckiah's eyes put out, and he bound in chains to be carried 
to Babylon by the Chaldeans. 

Nothing is more prominent in the Old Testament than the legal pro- 
tection given to free labor. God threatened by judgments, that Avere 
awful, to avenge the oppressions of the free laborer. There is one law 
for their benefit, which embodies tlic divine benevolence in a very con- 
spicuous manner. He gives the free laborer a right to borrow of his 
brother, (even victuals when hard pressed,) and makes it the duty of that 
rich brother, under a heavy penalty— that of having God's blessing with- 
lield—to loan him a supply, and that without usury, and to relelxse him 
from all that was unpaid at the Sabbatic year, or the year of release. 
Deut. XV. V to 10. The Divine legislation for this class of free laborers 
suggests to the mind that there is a natural tendency with the rich to op- 
press free labor— because, in all God's legislation against oppression, there 
is not a law passed, or a judgment threatened to guard the hereditary 
slave against want, or oppression of any kind, save that of personal abuse 
in anger. To prevent this, he freed the slave so treated, as we have seen 
in 'Exo. xx. 26, 27. This remarkable fact of legislative silence for the 
protection of slaves, can only be accounted for by supposing, what we of 
the South know to be true, that the relation of master and slave, which 
God ordained between the superior races of Shem and Japheth and the 
inferior race of Ham, was a relation that in the nature of things consti- 
tuted the strongest guarantee, which can bind tlie superior to take care 
of the inferior man. That it Avas more effectual than legal enactments 
enforced by the severest penalties— and therefore no laws were necessary 
to secure the hereditary slave from oppression and Avant, as the relation 
itself Avould make it the interest of the master to proAnde w^ell for his 
slave, and not oppress him. This relation abates " the irrepressible con- 
flict " between free labor and capital, and secures the affection and con- 
fidence of the slave to his master and family A\-here he lacks nothing. 
And hence the remarkable fact, that in all the divine legislation for a 
slaveholding nation there is not a single laAV, express or imi)lied, against 
servile insurrection. The Avisdom of this omission is proved by the his- 
torical fact, that, in the fifteen hundred years of their national existence, 
they never had a single fear awakened on that subject. 

Their various Avars, and the awful calamities and burdens of their 
wars, fell upon men Avho , Avero free— while their domestic slaves were 
sitting under their vines and fig-trees in peace. For the privileges and 
blessings of slavery under such circumstances, the Jcavs themselves, \n 
the Avilderness, often turned back in their hearts, greatly preferring their 
slavery among the flesh-pots, onions, and leeks of Egypt, to the perils, 
dangers, and privations of freedom— as you Avill sec by reading their his- 
tory during their forty years' sojourn in the Avildcrncss. 

Their history further proves tliat, after they were quietly settled m 
their own land, tliere Avas an irrepressible conflict between free labor and 
capital, or between the ricli and the ])oor. This began to shoAV itself 
Avith the oppressions of King Saul ; and was intensified until the opprcs- 



SLAVERy AND GOVERNMENT, 31 

sioDS and exactions of King Solomon npon free labor led, jusfc after his 
death, to civil war and disunion— ten tribes on the one side, and two on 
the other, arrayed in bitter hostility and deadly strife, until the names of 
the ten tribes were blotted out from tlje catalogue of nations. This con- 
flict between free labor and capital will always bo greater or less, accord- 
ing to the law of supply and demand ; that 'is, when the supply of free 
labor is large, and the demand for it small— the price of labor comes 
down below the laborer's necessary wants, and he is rendered desperate 
in his feelings towards the owners of capital. On the other hand, when 
the demand for free labor is greater than the supply of it, then the laborer 
extorts a price for it beyond its value, and then men of capital become 
desperiite in their turn and meditate revenge. This antagonism and its 
(consequent alienation can only be prevented by a controlling sense of 
justice. 

When our Northern brethren get their consent in years of difficulty 
and small profits, to share with free labor the profits of prosperous years 
— as we find it our interest as well as pleasure to do witli our slaves at 
the South, they will abate this irrepressible conflict among them ; which 
already needs every now and then the strong arm of the government to 
suppress it — and which, if not checked by a nearer approach to justice, 
will bring forth the fruit it has always produced— that of some bold spirit, 
who, like Jeroboam, will seize the sword and put an end to anarchy by 
burying, in the grave of despotism, the liberty and the covetousness of 
wealth which produced it. 

I will now leave the Old Testament and open the New, to see what 
our Saviour and the apostles did with slavery. Eome swayed her sceptre 
at the time over one hundred and twenty millions of people. According 
to a most careful survey, not of translations, but of all the ancient author- 
ities in the original languages in which they were written. Gibbon affirms 
that one-half of these one hundred and twenty millions were domestic 
slaves ; that they were made slaves by victory" over opposing nations ; 
that the enslaved were persons of every rank ; that the means of con- 
trolling them was left to the discretion of the master ; that the power of 
life and death, without responsibility to the State, was in his hands ; that 
this Vi^as the state of things in the Roman empire, when the missionaries 
of the Cross were sent through that empire and the world to set up the 
Kingdom of Christ. 

Now the question to be settled is this, What did Christ and the 
apostles do with slavery ? They were obliged to meet with it evei-y- 
where. It existed everywhere— among Jews and Gentiles. The first 
thing done by Christ in person, in reference to this and all other subjects 
of like kind, was to disclose and act out one great principle. That prin- 
ciple was, that earthly governments were ordained of God for the regu- 
lation of human conduct in all the relations of this life, and that these 
governments were to be obeyed and honored, and that our spiritual rela- 
tions to God involved no obligations to disobey them. 

This line of separation which gives to God only jurisdiction under the 
first table of the law, and which gives to man jurisdiction only under 
the second table of the law, was disclosed in the Saviour's reply to the 
Pharisees. They supposed, if he had courage to speak tlie truth, he 
would have proclaimed to Abraham's seed exemption from obedience to 
the law of the Roman empire. The law of Moses was from God. The 
Roman law was from sinful man. The Pharisees thought that disobe- 
dience to Cffisar was obedience to God. This was JohnlBrown's theory. 
It is the theory of all the fanatics at the North. The Saviour's doctrine 
IS contained in his reply to the Pharisees. That rejjly is in these words : 
" Render unto Cfesar the things that are Ca3sar's, and unto God the things 
that are God's." The same doctrine is taught by him when tribute was 



32 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

wrongfully demanded of him at the Sea of Galileo. He thought on that 
occasion and acted out the princii)le, that suhmission to earthly govern- 
ments was a duty, even when in our private judgments its power was 
abused, as was the case in that instance, in exacting of him, a Jew, what 
strangers only were bound to pay. That the lesson might be more im- 
pressive, he refused to be released from personal responsibility, and sent 
Peter to get tribute money for them both from the mouth of a fish, which 
he made to serve him on the occasion, by an exercise of his divine power. 
Refusing to acknowledge this principle and to act upon it, cost John Brown 
his life. Before Pilate cur Saviour proclaimed the same great principle 
when he said, " My kingdom is not of this world ; " meaning thereby 
that allegiance to God in religion involved no treason, but obedience, to 
earthly governments ; if otherwise, twelve legions of angels would have 
lent him their aid to overthrow them. Brov/n differed with the Saviour; 
he thought obedience to government wrong, and treason against gov- 
ernment right ; for his wickedness ho lost his life. 

Although Clu'ist was a king, and had a kingdom here on earth; yet 
it was not set up for worldly purposes — it was not to wage war upon the 
governments of the world. Its sphere of operation and supremacy was 
the heart of man. Its design was to call into exercise the spirit of good- 
will to man and peace on earth. Christ taught that the subjects of his 
kingdom were still to retain the civil and jiolitical relations they had 
previously held to earthly goverimients. The husband, the wife, the 
parent, the child, tlie master, the servant, the ruler and the people, 
wlien called by grace into his kingdom, were to abide in these relations, 
and were still bound to render obedience to their respective earthly gov- 
ernments, and that, in doing so, they were rendering obedience to God as 
well as to man. 

There is perfect harmony between the teachings of Christ on this sub- 
ject before his death, and the teachings of the apostles after his ascension 
to heaven. On the subject of submission and obedience to earthly gov- 
ernment by the followers of Christ, we have the following plain instruc- 
tion by the Apostle Paul to the Church, (or rather the churches, for there 
were several of them.) planted in the city of Rome. In the xiii. of his 
letter to these churches, some of whose members belonged to Cffisar's 
household, from the 1st to the 8th verses he says : " Let every soul be 
subject to the higher powers : the powers that be, are ordained of God. 
Wliosoever, therefore, resisteth the power resisteth the ordinance of God : 
and they that resist shall receive to tliemselves damnation. "Wilt thou 
then not be afi-aid of the power ? Do that which is good and thou shalt 
liave praise of the same ; for he is the minister of God to thee for good. 
But if thou do that which is evil, be afraid ; for ho bcareth not the sword 
in vain ; for he is the minister of God ; a revenger, to execute wrath 
upon him that dooth evil. Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only 
for wrath, but also for conscience sake. For, for this cause pay ye tribute 
also; for they are God's ministers, attending continually on this very 
thing. Render therefore to all their dues ; tribute to whom tribute is 
due; custom to whom' custom; fear to whom fear; honor to whom 
honoi.-." 

Here is the political creed of Jesus Christ ; delivered by the Apostle 
Paul to all Christians. Comment on this creed to make it plainer, would 
be like gilding pure gold. The apostle licre teaches that human govern- 
ments are God's ordinances, that they originate in his will, that he has 
delegated to them his authority to punish evil doers, and that Christian 
obedience to human governments is service done to God. 

Tlic government within whose limits this subjection and obedience 
would be tirst called into exercise, was a government that sanctioned 
elavcry. It was a government, as wo have seen, that sanctioned the use 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 33 

of all such means in securing the subordination of tlie slave, as the mas- 
ter in his discretion might think proper to use. This obedience to civil 
government is enjoined, not only to avoid wrath, or the penalty of the 
law, which is C4od's wrath but this obedience was to be rendered for con- 
science sake towards God. How great must be the difference between 
such a conscience and that of the " higher law ! " One of these con- 
sciences, made by the political creed of Christ, presents an oflering to Gotl 
of the ohedience it lias rendered to human government as service done to 
him. The other of these consciences, made by the "higher law," presents 
an offering to God of the rebellion and treason it has made against human 
government as service done to him. Ai*e both of these offerings alike 
acceptable in the sight of God ? Who will ansv/er, yea? 

It may be that some will ask, Does Christ sanction, as right, all the 
abuses of power in human governments ? Not at all. lie commands all 
that is right, and sanctions notliiug wrong in his kingdom, and leaves all 
other kingdoms to the control of those who are providentially responsible 
to him for the exercise of their authority in civil matters. His kingdom, 
which is not of this world, was intended to be the " light of the world." 
His kingdom is " righteousness and peace." Every subject of his king- 
dom is required, if it be possible, "to live peaceably with all men," and 
to " seek after the things that make for peace." Wlien his kingdom re- 
flects " righteousness, peace on earth and good-will to man," it puts forth 
all its legitimate power for the correction of wrong in earthly kingdoms. 
When the professed subjects of his kingdom take the sword, not as a 
citizen in obedience to civil authority, but as Christians in obedience to 
Christ, to resist human governments as Peter did, wlien he struck off the 
ear of the law-officer, the Saviour admonishes them that they shall perish 
by the sword. 

The Apostle Peter gives the political creed of Jesus Christ to all Chris- 
tians, in the following words : " Submit yourselves to every ordinance of 
man for the Lord's sake, whether it be to the king as supreme, or unto 
governors, as unto tliem that are appointed by him, for so is the will of 
God, Honor all men ; love the brotherhood ; fear God ; honor the king. 
Servants, be subject to your masters ; wives, submit yourselves to your 
husbands ; husbands, dwell with them, according to knowledge ; giving 
honor to the wife. Finally, do not render evil for evil, but blessing; 
don't return railing for railing ; refrain the tongue from evil, and the lips 
from guile ; eschew evil ; do good ; seek peace, and ensue it. But, and 
if ye suffer when ye do all these, how then?" Well, says the apostle, 
" if when ye do well and suffer for it, ye take it patiently, this is accept- 
able with God ; for even hereunto were ye called." 

Here we see the case supposed, that after rendering the most perfect 
political fidelity to government, yet Christians may be called to suiier by 
an abuse of political power. Instead, however, of releasing Christians 
from allegiance to government in such cases, or authorizing wholesale 
murder and treason by men who had never been called to suffer at all ; 
the apostle teaches that this suffering on the part of Cliristians for pa- 
tient continuance in well doing, is acceptable with God, and that they are 
hereunto called by him. 1 Peter ii. 13 to 25. 

From this plain instruction, given for the government of Chistians in 
their political relations, what are we to think of the " higher law " cru- 
sade of the present day, made, not by citizens in obedience to any author- 
ity recognized of God, but professedly in the name and to meet the de- 
mands of Christ, whose " kingdom is not of this world ? " 

Again : The Apostle Paul, in writing a letter to Titus, who was an 

evangelist, shows a special solicitude that Christians should be taught by 

him the great duty of submission to earthly govermtients, and that they 

should not be allowed to forget their duty in this behalf. Hence the ro- 

3 



34 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

markable language in Titus iii. 1, 2: '■'■put them in mind to be subject to 
principalities and powers, to obey magistrates, to be ready for every good 
■work, to speak evil of no man, to be no brawlers, but gentle, showing all 
meekness to all men." 

Again, the same solicitude is shown by the same apostle in -writing a 
letter to Timothy. Timothy and Titus were evangelists, employed by the 
apostle in visiting the churches, and preaching the Gospel on each side of 
the maritime boundary which separates Europe from Asia, and from 
ihencc eastward and westward along the continents of Asia and Europe, 
and among the islands of the Mediterranean Sea, from Rome down to the 
borders of Arabia. In this first letter of Paul to Timothy, ii. 1, 2, he ex- 
liorts him to instruct the churches, that, in exhibiting the character of 
Christianity in its doctrines, spirit, and jjractical requirements^ they let their 
loyalty to earthly governments be very conspicuous. First of all, he ex- 
horts Timothy, and all the members, to let rulers and all in authority, and 
all who attended their worship, know the solicitude Christians felt for the 
lienor and success of their rulers, as tlie ministers of God, into whose 
hands he had committed the welfare of the State. 

Having shown, as I trust, by the example and teaching of Christ — and 
by the teaching of the apostles, that governments such as then existed, 
(and tliey are known to have been slaveholding,) are declared by the apos- 
tles to be ordinances of God, and that obedience to them is one of the 
higliest earthly duties enjoined upon Christians, I will now ])roceed to 
show that the relation of slavery sought to be overthrov/n by our North- 
ern brethren is not only not condemned as a sin, nor prohibited by the 
Bible, but fully sanctioned as a lawful relation among men by Christ and 
Jjis. apostles. 



CHAPTEE III. 

A 'General View of what the Bible teaches on Slavery until the Ascension of 
Christ — Paul to the Gentiles — Ills Ephcsian Letter — Spiritualism — Idolatry 
— Abolitionism — Forbids fellowship with Abolitionists — His Letter to Tim- 
othy — To Titus — To Corinth — Peter's Letter to the Jews — Authority c/iven the 
Husband, the Father, the Master — Obedience enjoined upon the Wife, the Child, 
the Slave — The relation betiveen the parties ordained by God — Based upon Jus- 
tice — Reciprocal Duties — Obedience to God — Obedience, a test of Disciplcship 
— The I'eachinff of the Apostles — 77ie Teaching of the Abolitionists — One God- 
liness, the other Blasphemy — The Colossiati J^ettcr — Paul retttrns a Runaway 
Slave to his Master — Tlie reason assic/ncd — His example copied when the Fcd- 
.cral Constitution was formed — Objections answered — Note. 

It may bo of service to my reader, if he is desirous to see this subject 
in the light of the Bible, to have a brief bnt connected view of it from 
tlie first ray of Bible light, which is shed upon it, until the New Testa- 
jnent ia clo^:ed. 

Slavery is first brought to view in coimcction with God's newly dis- 
closed purpose, after the fiood, of subdividing the descendants of Noah 
into nations. Tliis purpose was efi^cted by dividing their tongues or 
languages. Until the ilood, Adam's descendants f(jrmed but one great 
family, speaking the same language, with ])o]itical and social equality. 
The result was that the earth was soon filled wth violence. This was 
written for our learning, and it is full of instruction. 

Noali had three sons, Shem, Ilam, and Japheth, These three sons are 
declared by the Almighty to be types of the several nations that would 
descend from them. They are made tyj)ical representatives of superior, 



SLAVERY AND GO".'ERNMENT. 35 

inferior, and medium nations. Their several localities were selected of 
God for each class of these nations to occupy on the globe, and their habi- 
tations Avere adapted to their type of character. 

God announced his purpose of subordinating these nations one to an- 
other. This subordination was to harmonize witli their leading traits of 
character, and its ultimate object was their general good. The character 
given of God to each of these three sons, is the character of their descend- 
ants at the present moment. Ham was enslaved of God to Shem and Ja- 
pheth. The propriety of this was first seen in the abuse Ham's descendants 
made of freedom while they enjoyed it in the land of Canaan. From 
that day until this, their history proves tliat freedom to them is a curse, 
and not a blessing, and that Ham's character is a true type of the charac- 
ter of his descendants. 

Shem is characterized as the subject of reverence for the true God, in 
the midst of idc>latry and wickedness — and is a true type of his descend- 
ants through Abraham until the present hour. It was with Abraham and 
his descendants that his mission was inaugurated. 

Shem was made the father of nations, whose mission was that of 
treasure-keepers and promulgators of the divine mind. His mission was 
organized in Abraham's family under the patriarchal form of government, 
and was rc-organized in the wildernesss when he entered, as a nation, 
upon his mission in the land of Canaan — which he prosecuted until the 
coming of Christ. 

Ham, the inferior son, was subjected to slavery, and his mission in- 
volved an obligation to serve Shem, when Shem entered upon his mission 
in the land of Canaan. This, we have seen, they were made to do by the 
enactment of the Mosaic law. 

_ Japheth, from small beginnings, was made to engirdle the globe. His 
mission involved the responsibility which attaches to universal dominion. 
His first home, given him of God, was in the islands of the sea ; but 
God promised to enlarge him in his geographical and intellectual dimen- 
sions, until he should not only occupy Europe, but dwell in the tents of 
Shem ; or, in other words, until, by the influence which enterprising in- 
telligence would give him, Shem would quietly defer to him throughout 
Asia. Asia was Shcm's home. 

Ham was devoted of God, not only to serve Shem, while Shem was 
prosecuting liis mission in the land of Canaan, but he was devoted of God 
to serve Japheth also, while Japheth was prosecuting the great mission 
assigned of God to him, of developing the intellectual and material treas- 
ures of the entire globe. 

Japheth's mission involved the obligation to promote the individual 
and general good of tlie whole human family. Ham was first to serve 
Shem in his mission, and then to serve Japheth in his mission. The sub- 
stance of these views necessarily involves dominion for Japheth over 
Ham in all nations, and a controlling influence over Shem in Asia. 

These prophetic paintings are to be found in Gen. ix. 19 to 27, and 
in X. Here we see the divine plan unfolded for controlling or governing all 
the subdivisions or social organizations among men. In this plan equality 
among nations, as well as individuals, is repudiated, and a subordination, 
that has reference to character and qualification, is established. 

Ham is brouglit to our view in these and the subjoined inspirod rays 
of light in the context, as the slave of shameless animal propensities — 
without self-respect, and is made the representative type of those nations, 
or individuals to descend from him, who, for their resemblance to liim. 
should be subjected to the control of sujieriors for their own good, and 
that of the world. Shem appears in tliese rays of divine light, with 
characteristic reverence for the true God. This reverence always includes 
qualities which fit men to control the slaves of animal appetites, devoid 



36 SLAVERY AND GOVEKNMENT. 

of self-respect, and to train tliem in virtue and religion ; hence Ham is 
made a slave, and snlyected to Sliem's control. Japiieth is enlarged by 
the Almighty, until he dwells in Shem's tents, or, in other words, until he 
controls Asia. And he is further enlarged by the Almighty until Ham is 
made his servant, and he Ham's master — or, in other words, until he exer- 
cises despotic control over Ham, and friendly control over Shem, in work- 
ing out the great results of human progress. 

This slio'.vs that in God's plan for securing these results, in nations as 
well as in families, slavery must be used as a necessary means for control- 
ling, improving, and elevating the inferior and degraded man. It shows 
also that qualitications, fitting men for religious progress, such as Shem 
had, are not the qualifications which fit them for political and scientific 
progress. This shows also that the medium man may do well in religion, 
while he cannot rise above mediocrity in the higher attainments of science 
and skill, in tlie progressive developments of the natural world, unless 
Japheth, or the superior man, will dwell in his tent and lead him on in the 
path of progress. Religious progress is best promoted by the moral power 
of the masses — the world's progress by the intellectual power of the 
classes. 

The great truth of Japheth's superiority and mission has been in a 
course of development since he was inaugurated m the west of Europe. 
In China, the East Indies, and Asia generally, Shem had risen to a level 
above which he can never rise unaided. Ham never has shared, and prob- 
ably never can, in the great results of Japheth's mission, without the ab- 
solute control of Japheth as a humane benefactor. Freedom and equality 
are Ham's social poison. Moral health or intellectual manhood cannot be 
secured to him while he drinks this poison. 

Slavery was decreed of God for the correction of sin, and the good of 
the world. It made its appearance according to the Bible, first in the 
family of Abraliam, in the domestic form. This took place when God 
called Abraliani from Ur of the Ohaldees, to inaugurate Shem's mission, 
under the patriarchal form of government. God called him into the land 
of Canaan to survey the theatre upon which, after four hundred years, 
his mission was to be prosecuted to its consummation, under a national 
form of governinent, with God liimself as the lawgiver and governor. 
Abraham, while prosecuting his high trust of treasure-keeper and promul- 
gator of God's will, bought and raised a very large family of slaves. At 
his death, this man who was selected of God to know and teach his will, 
gave these slaves to his son Isaac in perpetuity. Isaac, at his death, willed 
them to Jacob. Jacob, while young, married in Padan Aram, and by his 
own skill and industry made large additions, by purchase, to those slaves 
which lie inlierited at his father's death. With these slaves, and their 
increase in Egypt, Abraham's seed were miraculously led by the Almighty 
from Egypt to tlie land of Canaan. They liad then been domestic slave- 
holders for some four hundred and fifty years. While the Almighty de- 
livered them from national bondage, he fully sanctioned their system of 
domestic bondage, in allowing their slaves to celebrate the passovcr, and 
prohibiting it to hired servants. They were required, when they reached 
the promised land, to destroy utterly, without mercy, seven of tlie most 
degraded nations of Ham' s descendants, and to enslave the balance of 
thein^ which amounted, at that time, to seven or eight nations more, 
within the limits given to Abraham l)y promise. God gave to Abraham's 
seed, at the same time, the markets of the world also, for a larger su])ply 
of slave labor ; and authorized them to enslave poor young females of 
their own race, to save them from poverty and crime ; and to enslave such 
of their own broth-crs witli families, as had not skill to ju'ovide for them- 
selves. Tliey were directed, also, to subject their criminal brothers to the 
domestic coirtrol and service of masters, that their morals might be cor- 



SLAVERY AND GOVEKNMENT. 37 

rected, and society secured against their aggressions. All this shows tliat 
God's peculiar people were taught to use slavery as a good to the degraded 
and helpless. And it is written in the Scriptures for our learning. 

When Shem's mission was ended in Asia by the coming of Christ, 
Japheth had begun in Europe to assume the responsibilities of his mission. 
It was at this time that the Saviour set up his kingdom. We are deeply 
interested, therefore, in knowing what Jesus did in his kingdom with sla- 
very, Avhich Japhetli had eslablished, ^vithin the limits of his control. His 
control, or government, extended over a hundred and twenty millions of 
souls. 

We have already seen that Christ interfered in no way with the pre- 
rogatives of earthly government. But we have seen also, that within his 
own kingdom he exercised absolute control over every thing sinful in the 
sight of God, whether it be that which is sinful in itself, or that which is 
made to be sin by Divine prohibition. If slavery, therefore, be sinful in 
either of these respects, it must be prohibited in the Church of Christ ; 
and just here, let me remark once for all, that if slavery be a lawful relation, 
yet it is a relation that subjects the slave very often to injustice and cru- 
elty by the master, just as the marriage relation very often does the wife; 
just as the parental relation very often does the child ; just as the politi- 
cal relation of ruler and ])eople very often does the subject. The author- 
ity given of God in all these relations is often abused by those who exer- 
cise it. Now, let it be noticed by my reader, that Christ, in his kingdom, 
has given his full sanction and approval to all those relations, but not to 
their abuse. And let my reader notice, that Christ, in his kingdom, has 
corrected all the abuses of authority in these several relations ; and has 
made obedience in them, to be obedience to God ; requiring that this obe- 
dience be rendered with good will to the authoritative head of these rela- 
tions. This is as true of all these relations, as it is of any one of them. 

The reasoning which aims to destroy the relation of slavery, because 
of injustice, cruelty, or oppression on tlie part of the master, will apply 
with exactly the same force against the marriage relation, the paternal re- 
lation, and that of ruler and people, because God's authority in all these 
relations can be abused — and his authority in all of them is abused. If, 
therefore, the abuse of his authority in one of them makes the relation 
to be sinful, then the abuse of his authority in the others, makes them to 
be sinful also. In the Church of Ciirist, the abuse of God's authority in 
these relations is prohibited, and the right use of his autliority is enjoined. 
It is enjoined equally in all, as in any one of them. 

While abolitionism holds slavery to be a sin, yet it admits it was sanc- 
tioned in the Church. If this be so, then, according to abolitionism, the 
direction given to masters and slaves in the New Testament, is direction 
given to teach them how to live in sin ; and so of the direction given to 
husband and wife, parent and child, ruler and people. Consistency will 
make all these directions, to be directions given to the ])arties to teach 
them how to live in sin. How can we establish a ditference when the 
Holy Ghost has made no diiference ? God, in his word, lias established 
each relation, and given to its head the authority to govern. He has en- 
joined obedience in all these relations, find for the same end in all. That 
is, that God may be glorified — as you will see in the references now to be 
made. 

The object now to be accomplished, is simply to show from the New- 
Testament that the Roman slavery which existed when the Gospel was 
first proclaimed, was a relation which the Gospel sanctioned as lawful, 
and that its reciprocal duties, enjoined upon the master and the servant, 
gi'ow out of the relation itself; that they do not exist outside of it, and 
that they rest upon the foundntion of justice, just as do the duties of 
husband and wife, parent and child, ruler and people. These relations 



38 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

all involve justice. Tlie duty enjoined upon the liusuand gives liiin a 
just right to the obedience of Lis wife. This duty of the Ijushaiid is 
an equivalent for the obedience of the wife, and that rendered in the 
best form. The performance of the duty enjoined upon the wife, gives 
her a just right to all that. God has enjoined upon the husband ; and 
so of master and slave, parent and child, ruler and people. Those duties 
which God enjoins upon the master, give him a just right to the ser- 
vice or labor of his slave ; and that service or labor gives the slave a 
just right to all which God has commanded the master to render for 
it ; and so of parent and child, ruler and people. Authority and con- 
trol are given on one side, obedience and service are enjoined on the 
other. These are all relations of justice, because that which is rendered 
by one side is justly paid for by an equivalent on tlje other. These 
reciprocal duties grow out of the relation itself. They are based upon 
justice, and are not due where the relation does not exist. 

The legality of slavery in the sight of God is proved by the insi)ired 
and authoritative letters of the apostles. These letters were written to 
organized Gospel churches. They were written for the purpose of teach- 
ing those churches, and all others through them, what the Gospel sanc- 
tioned as lawful among Christians, and what it prohibited as unlawful ; so 
that tlie churches thus instructed might exhibit to men of all orders of 
mind, and to governments of every form, tlie practical requirements of 
that XeiD King, whose kingdom they were engaged in setting up. That 
kingdom the prophets had declared was to be universal and eternal. The 
very first utterances of the Gospel, therefore, concerning the exte7it and 
duration of this kingdom, must excite solicitude among rulers and people 
in every nation wliere the Gospel was proclaimed. They must necessarily 
feel solicitous to know its bearings upon their respective forms of govern- 
ment, and their social institutions. This we know from tlie Xew Testa- 
ment was the fact. And especially would they desire to know, whether 
its object was to break up the whole framework of society and reconstruct 
it on a new basis. The people and their rulers must expect tliat a Jviiig, 
with ambassadors and agents in every country, to organize a universal 
Mngdom, could only accomplish that ohject by overthrowing the existing 
relations of society, and the organized governments for their security and 
protection. This new kingdom, they would naturally suppose, might be 
based on the principle of making all things common, or it might be based 
upon the principle of private property and personal rights. If on the 
principle that all things are common, then private property, matrimony, 
slavery, family and State governments were to be overthrown, sud the 
antediluvian model, in the excesses of its final licentiousness, re-established 
upon their ruins. 

If upon the principle of private property and personal right*, still the 
question would come up whether the settlement of these rights, and the 
relations out of wliich they grow, were to be left " to the powers that be," 
or to this new Icing of universal dominion. To answer these questions is one 
great object of the apostolic letters. The passages in these letters, which 
sanction human governments as ordinances of God, that are to be obeyed 
by the disciples of Christ, have been already referred to and quoted at 
length. 

I will now bring to the notice of my reader those ])ortions of these 
letters which recognize as lawful the most important rehitions of society 
which had been established in the Roman empire, under which the Sa- 
viour and the apostles lived, and within the limits of which his kingdom 
was first to be set up. Husband and wife, jiarent and child, master and 
servant, rider and jjcople, were all relations existing in that emjiire, and 
they are all recognized by the apostles as lawful relations in the sight of 
God. The relative duties' which grow out of the lirst three of these rela- 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMEST. 39 

tions iire enjoined in Paul's letter to the church at Ephesns, beginning at 
the twenty-tirst verse of the fifth chapter, and ending with the ninth verse 
of the sixth cliapter, which reads thus : '• Wive?, submit yourselves unto 
your own husbands as unto the Lord. For the husband is "the head of the 
wife, even as Christ is the head of the Church ; and he is tlie Saviour of 
the body. Therefore as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives 
he to their own liusbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives, even 
as Christ also loved tlie Ciuirch, and gave himself for it, that he might 
sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word ; that lie 
might present it to himself, a glorious Cliuroh, not having spot or wrinkle, 
or any such thing ; but that it should be holy and without blemish. So 
ought men to love their wives as tlieir own bodies ; he that loveth his wife 
loveth himself. For no man ever yet hated his own flesh, but nourisbeth 
and cherisheth it, even as the Lord, the Church ; for we are members of 
his body, of liis tlesh, and of his hemes. For this cause shall a man leave 
his father and motlier, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they two 
shall be one flesh. This is a great mystery, but I speak concerning Christ 
and the Church. Kevertheless, let every one of you in particular,"so love 
his wife even as himself, and the wife see that she reverence her husband."' 

" Children, obey your parents in the Lord, for this is right. Honor 
thy father and mother, (which is tlie first commandment witli promise.) 
•that it may be well with thee, and thou mayest live long on the earth. 
And ye fathers, ]irovoke not your children to wrath; but bring them up 
in the nurture and admonition of the Lord." 

" Servants, be obedient to them that are your masters according to the 
flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as unto'Christ. 
Not with eye-service, as men pleasers ; but as the servants of Christ, doing 
the will of God from tlie lieart ; with good will, doing service as to the 
Lord, and not to men ; knowing that whatsoever good thing any man 
doeth, the same shall he receive of the Lord, whether he be bond or free. 
And ye masters, do the same things unto them, forbearing threatening, 
knowing that your master also is in heaven ; neither is there respect of 
persons with him." 

Here is instruction for a Christian family, a domestic empire, contain- 
ing within itself the elements of a state for whose welfare a system of con- 
trol and subordination was established by the Roman law and sanctioned 
by the Saviour, in wliich husbands, parents and masters are invested with 
authority over wives, children, and slaves ; and the exercise of this au- 
thority, and the yielding of this subjection cheerfully, are made to be 
Christian duties. Clirist recognizes these relations as lavrful ; and he re- 
cognizes the authority and subjection which belong to them as just and 
right in the siglit of God. He gives instruction how God is to be glorified 
by the parties. Tiie husband is to glorify him by such an exercise of his 
authority over his wife as will prove that he loves her as himself, by a 
love which in character resembles that of Christ to the Churcli. The 
wife is to glorify God by a submission to her husband, which in character 
resembles that which is due to the Saviour by the Church. The child is 
to glorify God by an obedience to liis parents, which God makes in his 
word to be right, and promises to reward with good days and long life. 
Tlie father is to glorify God by such an exercise of his "authority as will 
not provoke, and by its severity beget wrath in his child ; but by such an 
exercise of it as Avill bring him up to social, moral, and intellectual man- 
hood in the fear of God. The servant is to glorify God by an obedience 
to his master, the same in character as the obedience he is commanded to 
render to Christ. The master is to glorify God by an exercise of liis au- 
thority over his servant, the same in character as tlie obedience required 
of Ills servant to him ; that is, that ho is to exercise this authority witli 
singleness of heart as to Christ, Christ having required it to be done, and 



40 SLAVEHY AND GOVERNMENT. 

made it to be a inedium of serving hira, when done by a riglit rule and 
to a right end. These several reciprocal duties grow out of these several 
relations. Each of these i-elations of husband and wife, parent and child, 
master and servant, has the sanction and approval of God, both among 
the patriarchs under the law of Moses, and now by the authority of 
Christ, in the organic laws of his kingdom, -which visibly is a gospel 
Church where all its ordinances are administered, its doctrines taught, 
and laws enforced. This being so, then I ask, if a man honors his under- 
standing by limiting the slave's obligation, as the abolitionists do, to 
such duties as the slave owes to every other man as much as to his 
master — that is, that the slave is only bound to speak the truth, to be 
holiest, to perform moral requirea)ents, which are due by him to all otlier 
men as much as to his master ; and that these moral requirements are 
equally the duty of all men, and do not grow out of the relation he stands 
in to his master. 

Some of the greatest and best men in the abolition ranks have put 
forth such an interpretation as the above of those plain portions of God's 
word, and thousands, if not millions, have swallowed the poison ; but 
these distinguished abolitionists, from some cause, have omitted to mention 
the '■'•obedience'''' and '•'• suVjection^"^ which grow out of the relation itself, 
and which God hasi positively commanded. Servants are positively com- 
manded in the letter above quoted, "to obey them who are their masters- 
according to the flesh, with fear and trembling, in singleness of their heart 
as unto Christ, with good will doing them service." Query. — Do the 
slaves of the New Testament stand in a relation to all other men that 
makes it their duty to obey all other men after this model ? And have all 
men authority from God to control, direct, and receive sucli service as 
this is, from all other men? Again, the wife is bound to obey her hus- 
band in evei-y thing. Now, if this obedience of the wife does not grow 
out of her relation to her husband, then she is bound, according to aboli- 
tionism, to obey every other man in every thing, and every other man has 
an equal right, with her husband, to require it of her. The slave is bound 
to obey his master, and to please him well. If this obligation does not 
grow out of the i-elntion the slave stands in to liis master, then the slave, 
the wife, the child, and the citizen, are all released from all the obligations 
of obedience in these several relations, and may inaugurate the antediluvian 
lawlessness and licentiousness, as more in accordance with the freedom 
and equality of the "higher law " of the present day. 

The letter from which I have quoted was written to a church that, on 
two accounts, was second to no other in importance. First, for tlie facility 
with which statesmen, both in Europe and Asia, could obtain knowledge 
concerning the effects of Christianity on civil government; and secondly, 
for the influence which Avould be exerted by her members in tliis groat 
social and commercial centre, upon men of busrincss and pleasure who 
visited that city, as well as upon the members of other churches on tho 
two adjacent continents. 

In addition to the iniportance of Ejihesus as a social, commercial, and 
religious centre, the apostle attached additional importance to it, from his 
personal knowledge of tlie habits of the place, and the character of the 
materials of which the Church Avas composed. lie luxd labored hero in 
person, niglit and day, for three years, going from house to house, teaching 
the doctrines of thcGospel, and exhorting to tlic discharge of its i)ractical 
requirements. During this time he had invaded and overthrown, in that 
city, a branch of tho most dangerous organization to truth which had over 
existed. Satan, in every age, has succeeded among its members in se- 
curing accredited mediums of communication with the sj>irit world._ Tho 
witch of Eudor was eiuil'led by Satan to induce sensible men to give up 
God's word, and resort to these mediums for knowledge, both for the pres- 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMKNT. 41 

ent nnd tlie future world. They had an existence among Ham's descend- 
ants in Palestine. God, in his law, ordered ihem and idolaters to be put 
to death. Both were put to dealli for the same reason. Both exalted 
lying spirits above the Eternal I AM. Hence the New Testament cau- 
tion, "Iry the spirits." God's word under the Mosaic and Christian dis- 
pensation furnishes the test : if they speak not in agreement with that 
they ase not of God. ' 

We have lately been informed of their organized existence in China 
and that tins organization dates back centuries before the letter of Paul 
to the Ephesiaus was written. The masters of this diabolical art and 
their batanic mediums, are among us. The medinms are perhaps as un- 
conscious of Satanic possession, as was the damsel who followed Paul 
until lie turned and cast the devil out of her. ' 

Christ was constantly ejecting Satan from the bodies of men when 
here on earth, and restoring them to their right minds again The apos- 
tles were commissioned by Christ to cast out^devils. These devils mi^^ht 
and probably did, by the agency of these masters of the diabolic art iW 
sess men s bodies, and distract their minds. The masters of this art whoso 
object was gain, were persons of i)olicy and skill. We may well suppose 
they were slow to venture a direct encounter with truth ; but at Ephesus 
Paul invaded their ranks by the Gospel, and was made mighty throngh 
God in overthrowing their superstructure. He destroved the foundation 
upon which it rested. That foundation was a prefere'nce in their hearts 
for the master wiio paid the pocket, rather than the master who emptied 
It of cash, and then of Avorldly glory. The first was the devil, the other 
was the Saviour. 

This diabolical art was propagated by a course of secret training in 
which secreted books were used for subjecting the human organism' to 
the control of lying spirits, so as to make a hnman being see and hear 
inentally, and speak audibly, as moved by another intelligent mind. 
Ahab s prophets were thus acted upon, w-e know, because God permitted 
Micaias to have an inspired sight of a lying spirit going forth and 
deceiving them. This deception was effected by giving them a false view 
of the future. The converts from spiritualism at Ejihesiis, as soon as born 
again by the Spirit of God, searched for these diabolical books, and gathered 
up and publicly burned a number of them, the price of which was fifty 
thousand pieces of silver; "so mightily grew the Avord of God and pre- 
vailed." 

_ A distinguished man, named Demetrius, and a number of craftsmen 
with him, were banded together also in Ejihesus, for the encouragement 
of idolatry, by making silver decorations for idolatrous worshippers. 
These craftsmen w^ere invaded, and their craft endangered by the apos- 
tle's labors. Idolatry was as fatal to salvation by Christ, as the doctrine 
taught by Satanic mediums. These mediums, it is said, have now opened 
the seventh heaven among us. This heaven lies beyond six others, infe- 
rior to it. They shut up the Heaven of the Bible, and open others better 
suited to ungodly men. Idolatry, then and now, does the same thine. 
These idolatrous craftsmen and Satanic Spiritualists at Ephesus weie 
either overthrown, or shorn by Paul's labors of the encouragement which 
kept their crafts alive. By these displays of Gospel power, nearly the 
whole people of Asia had their attention aroused, and were brought as ii 
consequence to hear the Gospel. 

For the progressive results of the Gospel upon a theatre so long and 
so extensively controlled by the highest order of Satanic agents, the 
apostle must have felt intense solicitude, and hence his first letter to 
this church, which is principally occupied upon the great doctrines of tho 
Gospel. From this letter, a quotation has been made on the domestic 
relations. The apostle was moved by the Holy Ghost to give them 



42 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

written inspired authority fur the legality of matrimony, and for the 
legality of slavery in the sight of God, botli of which are now questi(;ned, 
or condemned, by tlie feedoni and equality doctrine of the liigher law ; 
as one if not both, was at Ephesus. And he gave them written and 
inspired authority for the duties imposed upon these parties ; and the 
duties imposed also by the Gospel upon parents and children. Thus, a door 
was opened, which made it proper to teach thein tliat obedience to the 
commanded duties of these several relations, was a religious service : that 
it reflected God's glory to others, secured assurance of their own accept- 
ance with God, and constituted visible and credible evidence that he who 
said he loved Christ, and did not keep these commandments, " was a liar, 
and tlie truth was not in him." 

The apostle had been admonished by the Holy Spirit before he left 
Ephesus, that after his departure grievous wolves would come in among 
them, not sparing the flock, and that from among themselves, also, men 
would arise, " speaking perverse things, to draw away disciples after 
them." 

In about one year from the time he wrote the letter to this church, 
from which I have quoted, he wrote another letter to Timothy, who was 
ministering to this ciiurch at the time. In this letter to Timothy, the 
apostle lets us know, that notwithstanding his plain instruction to this 
church in person for three years, and then in his letter to this cliurch 
four years afterwards on the subject of slavery, men with abolition sen- 
timents had risen up among them, who ignored his doctrine, and 
taught that Christianity abolished slavery, that slavery violated the 
unahenable right of every man to freedom and equality, Now, while 
these are not the identical words used by the apostle, yet this is an 
unavoidable inference from the language which he does use, as you will 
see in 1 Tim. vi. 1 to 6. 

" 1. Let as many servants as arc under the yoke count their own 
masters worthy of all honor, that the name of God and his doctrine be 
not blasphemed. 

2. And they that have believing masters, let them not despise them 
because they are brethren ; but rather do them service, because they are 
faitlifal and beloved, partakers of the benefit. These things teach and 
exhort. 

3. If any man teach otherwise, and consent not to wholesome words, 
even the words of our Lord Jesus Christ, and the doctrine which is accor- 
ding to godliness, 

4. lie is proud, knowing nothing; but doting about questions and 
strifes of words, whereof cometh envy, strife, railings, evil surmis- 
ings, 

5. Perverse disputing of men of corrupt minds, and destitute of the 
truth, supposing that gain is godliness ; from such withdraw thyself." 

I have said above, that the language used by the apostle in the five 
verses I have quoted, furnishes an unavoidable inference that abolition 
doctrine had gotten into the church at Ei)hesus, and was producing the 
same results which it is producing now among us. In the first verso 
above, the apostle enjoins all scrvanis under the yoke of bondage, to 
account their own masters worthy of all honor. This duty of counting 
masters wortliy of all honor, was enjoined upon Cliristian slaves, wlio had 
unbelieving masters, as the ne.\t verse shows. This injunction, of all 
honor to unbelieving masters, constitutes a new item in the catalogue of 
directions to servants. It shows i)lainiy, that a system of false teaching 
had made this injunction necessary. Tliis is 'the first and only time wo 
ever hear in the New Testament, of the conduct of believing slaves caus- 
ing the name of God and his doctrine to be blasphemed. Blasplietning 
his name and doctrine is represented as a consequence originating iu 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 43 

the insiibordinato tendency of the doctrine which these believing servants 
had received. Now let it be noted by the reader, that the ajjostle had 
never delivered any doctrine to servants, that had an insubordinate ten- 
dency. But on tlie contrary, in his letter to this church one year before, 
he had taught servants to "obey tliem that were their masters according 
to the flesh, in singleness of heart as unto Christ, with good will doing 
service as unto the Lord." In tlie same letter, he taught the servants in 
that church that Christ would reward thora for that service. In the second 
verse he teaches believing slaves, who had believing masters, that they 
were not to despise their masters because they were behevers ; but the 
rather to do them service, because they were faithful and beloved bretli- 
ren, who would be benefited by their service. Now, why were such direc- 
tion and doctrine as this necessary ? Neither Paul, nor any other apostle 
had ever taught the servants of that,or any other church, that the doctrine 
of the Gospel authorized believing slaves to despise Christian masters 
because they were believers in Christ. Where did this anti-Christian hatred 
in the heart of these servants come from ? Certainly, not from the teaching 
of tlie apostle. He taught obedience to masters with good will from the 
heart, whether they were believing or unbelieving masters. lie taught 
that God required tliis of them, and that when they rendered it, they were 
to render it as to God ; which made it a part of their religious service. 
The doctrine which begat hatred in their hearts to their masters, was a 
doctrine taught by souae one else, who did not consent to the wholesome 
words of oiu- Lord Jesus Chrst on this subject (referred to by the apostle 
in the 3d verse). This being the state of facts, the apostle tells Timothy 
in the second verse that he v/as to teach servants " to honor their masters, 
and to serve them with good will from the heart, as to the Lord" — to teach, 
that this was their duty, made so by the Saviour,— that he must " teach 
and exliort" them to the discharge of this duty, that God might be glori- 
fied, his doctrine honored, and scandal avoided. He then tells Timothy, 
that " if any man teach otherwise, and consent not to the wholesome words 
of Christ" — and would not wipe his hands of all responsibility for such trea- 
sonable and insubordinate sentiments in the Church, it would be proof that 
he was " proud, knowing nothing" on this subject, that he was in rebel- 
lion against Clirist ; and therefore he orders Timothy at the end of the 
fifth verse, that from all such character she must " withdraw himself." 
In the fourth and fifth verses, he tells Timothy the description of characters 
such abolition sentiments produce, and how such characters employed 
themselves. Now if such characters were not already in Ephesus, then 
why does the apostle speak of their character and conduct ? — and why 
command to withdraw from them ? 

We can and we ought to compare the abolitionists rf the present 
day with the abolitionism at Ephesus, or with the description given of U 
by the apostle. If they are identically the same, then we n:n no risk in 
assigning to each the same father. 

The apostle says of the abolitionist at Ephesus, " he is j)roud, know- 
ing nothing" — that is, he knows nothing of God's will concerning slavery, 
as that will has been announced by his Spirit in the Bible ; or if lie knows 
it to be in the Bible, then he does not submit to the Bible as authority. 

These five verses bring to our notice the doctrine of Divine subordina- 
tion established under the Gospel between masters and servants. They 
bring to our notice also, by unavoidable inference, the teachers of a doc- 
trine that is subversive of this subordination both in Church and State. 
The moral character and conduct ascribed to those who subvert the doc- 
trine of Divine subordination, in Church and State, is also brought to 
view in the small compass of these five verses, and at the end of them, 
a command is given to withdraw from the opposers of Divine subor- 
dination. 



'h: 



44 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

The question conies np : "Who are they from whom, by this command, 
Christians are required to withdraw themselves? Can individuals he 
ascertained from their character and with as much certainty, as that light 
and darkness are not the same? I think so, for the following reasons: 
First, there are classes of individuals at the i)resent day, who teach what 
the apostle forbade to be taught ; that is, tliat servants under the yoke' 
of bondage are not bound by the law of God to count their mnsters wor- 
thy of all honor ; who teach that all laws which subject men to slavery 
are laws Vvhich disgrace the civilization of the world. Secondly, there 
are classes of individuals who teach that such laws ought not to be 
obeyed, and that resistance to them is the highest style of Christian duty. 
Thirdly, there are large classes who teach tliat slavery is the greatest of 
sins; the sum of all villainy. There are classes who teach that the slave, 
60 far from honoring his master with all honor, ought to run away from 
his master, to steal his property, to burn his house, and in every way to 
resist these New Testament directions. Organized abolition is a unit, 
made up of thousands, if not of millions, of individuals, who are actively 
and zealously engaged in teacliing all the abolition opposition to the laws 
of God and men, tl)at I have s]jecitied above, and much more of the same 
kind. They are banded together, not only to teach it, but to carry out 
their teaching, by overthrowing slavery and the sovereignty of the slave 
States, at whatever cost of life and suffering, so that four millions of 
happy slaves shall be made free from labor, to perish of want. 

Now, my reader, I must be permitted to say that the abolitionists of 
this country and Europe are engaged in teaching a doctrine which is 
plainly and palpably at vrar with a most important doctrine of the New 
Testament — that of civil and ecclesiastical subordination. A doctrine so 
dangerous to the peace, prosperity, and ha])piness of the Cliurcli and 
State, makes it the imperative duty of all Cliristians to withdrav*- from 
all ecclesiastical connection with them. This the apostle expi'cssly 
charges Timothy to do. No Christian man who knows Avhat abolitionism 
teaches, and who v/ishes honestly and sincerely to know from wliom the 
apostle requires him to Avithdraw himself, can be at a loss in deciding 
that abolitionists are the characters. They teach " otherwise," and ex- 
pressly contrary on the subject of slavery, to the teaching of the apostle 
in this place, and in every other part of the New Testament on the same 
subject. And not only contrary to the New Tcstameiif, but to the teach- 
ing of the Almighty to the jjati-iarchs, and in the law of Moses on the 
same subject. This I have previously made so apparent by the quota- 
tions and references from the Old Testament, as to leaie every man, I 
think, who reads it, without excuse for saying or beheving that the Bible 
condemns slavery. 

TliC dangerous tendency of this political and ecclesiastical heresy, 
called abolitionism, is cxliibited by the ajiostle, when in the third, fourth, 
and iii'th verses above quoted, he sets forth the moral elements it calls 
into activity in the human heart, after men arc brought under its domin- 
ion, lie says, such persons arc " proud." Pride is inordinate self-esteem, 
a high conceit of one's' own excellence. "Knowing nothing," of course 
he means, as to the will of God on slavery. Now, this iiart of the inspired 
description of abolitionism shows up to human view from the Bible, a 
zealous body of men engaged in constructing society on a new basis. For 
its fundamental principle, they claim the sanction of God's word. Tlic 
inspired apostle aifirms in so many words, they are ignorant of God's 
will on the subject. That, of that will they " know nothing." That the 
Divine princijil'c of subordination, which they seek to overthrow, licsat 
the bottom of all society which has God's sanction. This is the ])rin- 
ciple tliey are laboring to overthrow, in order that they may substitute tho 
freedom and equality i)rinciple in the place of it, — a ijrinciplo which is 

LofC. 



SLAVERY AND GOVEIINMENT. 



45 



unknown in any divinely organized body, domestic, political, ecclesiasti- 
cal or animal. Insubordination is taught to servants, and if to them, 
then for the same reason it must be extended to all the other relations 
among men, which subject one to the control of another _ 

These characters at Ephesus are farther noticed by the apostle in the 
fourth verse, as to the plan they pursued to accomplish their object. Iho 
apostle describes them as " doting about questions." " Doting " is defined 
to be excessive fondness. It means, therefore, an excessive fondness for 
questions A moderate acquaintance with abolitionists, will suggest that 
this fondness for questions is a peculiarity with them, a distinguished 
trait of character. Their questions are numberless, they are stereotyped, 
and so shaped as to imply a great deal not expressed, as taking for granted 
a great deal neither admitted nor susceptible of proof, as to suggest talse 
is«ues and parry off legitimate premises. These questions, for which this 
doting fondness is made prominent by the inspired pen, are questions 
which form the intellectual atmosphere, out of which the abolitionist can- 
not breathe. Subject him to the atmosphere of God's word on tins sub- 
ject, and he dies,— at least such has been the result, as far as I have seen 

it tried. , „•,•,.,. ^ i • • 

One remark wiU unravel the whole stock of abolition legerdemain in- 
volved in these questions. The design of these questions is, to make the 
lawfulness of slavery look too monstrous in the sight of God, for human 
belief Their plan to accomplish this, is to parade its greatest abuses, and 
its worst laws. If facts are wanting as to these, then they are manufac- 
tured to order. Well, my reader, admitting all the facts of abuse which 
have ever existed, or been charged to exist, and all the bad laws said to 
be found on the statute books, to be veritable facts, and then admitting 
that the half has never been told or imagined ; wdiat does it prove m 
settliiio- this question :—" Js slaverij a Icmful relati07i %n iho sight of 
Qod? "—the Bible being judge. Will all these facts of abuse go further 
in provin"- slavery to be an unlawful relation among men, tlian the same 
descriptioli of facts will go to prove that husband and wife— pai-cnt and 
child— ruler and people, are unlawful relations m the sight ot God i It 
certainly will not ; because such abuses are found in all these relations. 
An honest and candid man will be obliged to admit, that if the abuses of 
authority and suboi-dination, in any one of these relations, will prove that 
relation to be unlawful, unjust, and sinful ; then for the same reason, they 
are all proved to be unlawful, unjust, and sinful. For the admission ot 
this, no sane man is prepared. . 

The word of God expressly sanctions all of these relations, prescribes 
the duties which belong to all of them— and forbids all the abuses and 
wrongs which grow out of them. 

The question is not— Can God sanction government when rulers op- 
press their subjects?— Can God sanction marriage, when husbands do not 
love their wives as themselves, but abuse their authority over them ? 
The questioH is not— Can God sanction the government of fathers oyer 
their children, when fathers abuse their authority ?— Can God sanction 
slavery when masters abuse their authority over their slaves? But the 
question to be settled is this :— Does the word of God establish and sanc- 
tion these several relations, enjoin the duties growing out of them and 
make disobedience to the law of duty to be sin, just as he does disobedi- 
ence to any other commanded duty? 

All the questions, t/hich a doting fondness for questions can indnco 
an abolitionist to ask, will never change the issue. That issue is to be 
decided by the Bible. It is to be decided by a yea, or a nay, to this 
question : Does the Bible sanction the relation of master and slave ; pre- 
scribing their relative duties, and making obedience to those duties, 
obligatory on Christians, as a service rendered to Christ ? 



46 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 



To return from this digression, I will proceed in noticing the moral 
elements which this ecclesiastical and political heresy calls into activity, 
according to the description given of them by the inspired pen, eighteen 
hundred years ago. The next item in the catalogue is " strifes of words." 
Strifes of words is defiued to be, exertion, or contention for superiority 
in intellectual efforts, as to what words mean. This strife about the 
meaning of words has been carried on by the abolitionists, nntil the best 
intellects among them are not asham.ed to ignore the import of words 
which have had a universally accepted meaning among the ripest scholars 
of the world since Moses wrote the law, and the apostles wrote the New 
Testament. Their strifes about words have perverted or denied the 
meaning of words, and thereby created false mediums, through which an 
abolitionist sees in his mind what has no existence in the words used. 
Tliis is as fatal to truth as spiritual mediums. 

The next item of the moral elements of abolitionism enumerated by 
the apostle, is " envy." Envy is defined " discontent, excited by the 
sight of another's su])eriority, accompanied with hatred" — "a hatred 
springing from mortified pride and ambition that another has obtained 
what one has a strong desire to possess." The next moral element in the 
apostle's catalogue of abolitionism is, " strife." Strife is defined to be, 
exertion, or contention for superiority " — "either by physical, or intellec- 
tual efforts." The next element enumerated is, "railings." Kailings is 
defined to be, " clamoring with insulting language, uttering reproachful 
words." The next characteristic in this moral picture is, "evil surmis- 
ing." Surmising is defined to be, "suspecting, imagining upon slight 
evidence." The next characteristic is, " perverse disputings." Perverse, 
is an adjective used to denote the quality of a thing. The thing here is, 
" disputings." The character of the disputant is set forth in the word 
"perverse." Perverse is defined to be, " obstinate in the wrong, disposed 
to be contrary, untractable." These perverse disputants are described 
by the apostle, as men "of corrupt minds." Corrupt is defined to be, 
" change from a sound to a putrid state " — " a change from good to bad." 
In the next item the subjects of abolitionism are represented by the 
apostle, as men " destitute of the truth." This part of his description, 
condemns tliem as teachers^ and is a warning against them as dangerous 
leaders. No man, " destitute of the truth," can be fit) to lead others. In 
concluding the character of tlie abolitionists at Ephesus, the apostle 
identifies them in character Avith Simon the sorcerer, who supposed, with 
these abolitionists, that "gain was godliness" — that is to say, if godliness 
did not break up all subordination between the inferior and superior man, 
ai-id give freedom and equality to the subordinated man, then it was not 
worthy to be called godliness, because it could not liave God for its 
author, inasmuch as God, in their opinion, "created all men free and 
equal." 

Here is an an.ilysis of the moral qualities of abolitionism, as given to 
the world by an inspired pen. Can any man truthfully say, that its cha- 
racteristics, at the i)resent time, are not faitlifully and truly set forth in 
the drawing made of it at Ephesus, eighteen hundred years ago ? 

Now, my reader, I have quoted the recognition of slavery by the 
Apostle Paul in his letter to the Ephesian church, and in his letter to 
Timothy, while Timothy was ministering to that church one year after- 
wards. The slavery of which he writes was Eoman slavery. The slaves 
he addressed were the property of masters. The masters' power over 
them, was unlimited by the Iloman law. The masters and slaves were 
members of the Church of Christ. Now the question naturally arises, 
Did (jod command these believing masters to free their slaves? Did he 
teach them that slavery was the greatest sin among men ? Did he teach 
them that every man was created free and equal ? Did he teach them 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT, ^ 

that every man had an nnalienable ri<rlit to life, libertv, and the pursuit 
of happiness ? And did God teach these believing slaves, that thev had 
as much right to freedom as their masters ? Did he teach them" thev 
had as much right to enslave their masters, as their masters had to hold 
them in slavery ? Did God teach these slaves, that it was not thsir duty 
to obey their masters, but that it was their duty to assert and maintain 
their Jreedom by the use of all means in their power ? This is the doc- 
trine of the abolitionists of the present dav ; but it is the very doctrine 
• the apostle declares to be an ungodly doctrine, a doctrine not accordin'r 
to godliness, a blasphemous doctrine; and he commands Christians to 
withdraw from all such as hold or teach it. And the reason why they 
should withdraw he gives to be this,—" that the name of God and his 
doctrine of civil subordination " be not blasphemed." 

We will now hear the Apostle Paul instructing Titus, whom he left in 
Crete, to guard the Church against false doctrine. In the 2d chapter 9th 
and 10th verses, he says : " Exhort servants to be obedient unto their'own 
masters, and to please them well in all things ; not answering a^^ain • not 
purloining, ; but showing all good fidelity, that they mav adorn the' doc- 
trine of God our Saviour in all tilings." Here my reader will see that he 
makes it the duty of Titus to exhort Eoman slaves, Avho were believer'^ to 
be obedient to their own masters, and to please them well in all tliin'o-s 
jNow, task, is this the teaching and exhortation of abolitionists? He 
charges Titus to teach them not to purloin. Purloining is defined to be 
_" to take, 01- carry away for one's self." Is this the teaching of abolition- 
ists ? ^o, It is exactly the contrary of their teaching. He instructs Titns 
to teach them " to sho\,^ all good fidelity to their masters." Fidelity is 
defined to be, " faithfulness— a careful and exact observance of duty or 
performance of obligations." Is this the teaching of abolitionists ? And 
why 13 this required by the apostle of the servant ? The next words tell 
us w-hy. It IS that they " may adorn the doctrine of God our Saviour in 
all things. This obedience and fidelity of the servant, then, are to make 
the doctrine of God our Saviour on slavery appear beautiful — " to deco- 
rate it." This is defined to be the meaning of " adorn." Question .—I?, this 
the doctrine taught by the abolitionists ? Do they teach tliat the service 
obedience, and fidelity of slaves to their masters, rendered with good wili 
troin the heart, decorate and beautify the doctrine taught by ''God our 
Saviour ? No, my reader ; but the insubordinate doctrine they do teach 
13 declared by the apostle to be blasphemy against the doctrine of godli- 
ness taught by God our Saviour, as you will see in so many words in 
1 lim. VI. 1. 

I will now present my render with Paul's teaching to the Colossian 
church, on the subject of slavery. This church he had never seen, but 
iieanng they had been called by the Gospel into a church state, he wrote 
them a letter. The great doctrine of salvation bv Christ, is his theme in 
the commencement of this letter. After unfolding Christ's divinitv the 
sufficiency of his sacrifice for the atonement of sin, of his richtcous'ness 
tor the justification of the ungodly and their completeness when united 
to him, he proceeds to show them how they are to glorify God by a 
course of conduct prescribed by God their Saviour. " That tiiey were to 
iorbear one another, to forgive one another, to put on charity, to let the 
peace of God rule in their hearts, to be thankful, to let the word of God 
dwell in them richly, to do every thing in the name of the Lord Jesus ; that 
wives submit themselves to their own husbands, that liusbands love their 
wives, that children obey their parents, that fathers provoke not their 
cfiildren ; and then in chap. iii. 22, " that servants obey in all tilings their 
masters, according to tlie flesh ; not with eye service as men pleasers but 
m singleness of heart, fearing God : and whatsoever ye do, do it heartily a'* 
to the Lord, and not unto men, knowing that of the Lord -e shall receive 



48 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT, 

the reward of ilie inlieritancc ; for yo serve the Lord Christ. Bat ho that 
doetli wrong, shall receive for the v,^rong which he hath done, and there is 
no respect of persons. Masters, give mito your servants that ^vliich is just 
and equal ; knowing that ye also have a master in heaven." Tcuuiderstand 
any special instruction, it is necessary to understand the conclition and cir- 
cumstances of those to whom the instruction is given. This instruction 
was given to Roman servants and masters, who were converted to Chris- 
tianity. These servants were their masters' money or property. By the 
Eoman law they were bound to service or labor for life. They were ' 
bought and sold as any other species of proi)erty. In these respects their 
condition resembled American slaves. Their Roman masters, although 
converted to Christianity, had power by the Roman law to coerce obedi- 
ence by any means they might think proper to use, and were responsible 
to that law for no cruelty they might practise. In this there is no resem- 
blance between Roman and American slavery. The American slave is 
protected by law, and secured in comfort. His service or labor is secured 
to the master. For this service or labor the master is legally bound for 
more than justice could demand as an equivalent— and that paid m the 
best form. 

Notwithstanding all this, our Korthern brethren have allowed them- 
selves to believe that Southern slavery is as bad as Roman slavery. No 
wonder, therefore, that it should awaken their sympathy. Now let us 
suppose, for argument's sake, that Southern slavery is as bad as Roman 
slavery was ; what would our abolition brethren gain by the admission ? 
Can they induce the world to believe that they have reached a perfection 
that renders them more susceptible of sympathy than the Saviour ? They 
know that the Saviour had Roman slavery before his eyes constantly to 
awaken his sympathy, and they believe he had the power to abolish it at 
any time, as much as he had to control the winds and waves of Galilee. 
Would it not then be respectful to him to inquire how this almighty power 
of his was exercised for securing the gratification of his sympathetic heart, 
and how his infinite benevolence manifested itself for the down-trodden 
and helpless slave of the Roman empire ? To the man who will not con- 
sent to do this, we may safely apply the description given of an Ephesian 
abolitionist in vi. Tim. ; that is, " that he is proud." Pride is an unrea- 
sonable conceit of one's own superiority, but is there a man on earth, 
who thinks himself the superior of Christ in benevolence and sympathy ? 
Of that I will leave my reader to judge, by the evidence which he may pos- 
sess for the settlement of such a question. This much is certain, however, 
that Jesus Christ had slavery before his eyes every day, and knew that it 
existed everywhere in a worse form than any that now esists in Asia, Eu- 
rope, or America. 

I have made the above quotation from Paul's letter to the Colossians, 
that my reader might see how Christ's sympatliy showed itself towards 
the slave, and liow his authority was put fortli upon the master. This 
pattern of sympathy was given by infinite wisdom and benevolence. It 
certainly ouglit to be follov^ed by us. This pattern enjoins obedience upon 
the slave to his master in all things; and this obedience secures to the 
master the service and labor of the slave— but it does not stop there. It 
demands of the slave, not only this service to the letter, but it demands a 
moral cliaracter for this service. With that character, Christ promises to 
accept this service from the slave as a service done to him ; and assures 
the slave that when this literal service to his earthly master is rendered, 
with the moral ciualities in his heart towards that master which Christ re- 
quires of him, that then this service will be worthy ofthat reward which 
his lieavenly master has promised to them that obey him. 

On tlie other hand, a moral character is required for the master's 
authority, exercised over his servant, which in justice and equity shall ro- 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 



49 



eemblo that of his lieavenly master. This is the way Jesus Christ ex- 
pressed his sympathy for the poor down-trodden slave of the Roman em- 
pire. He did not abolish the relation that the slave stood in to his master. 
He did not teach hira to rebel, to runaway, to murder, or steal. He 
never hinted to the slave the " freedona and equality " doctrine. But by a 
single breath from his righteous lips to the master, secured a greater moral 
reform to the world, than all the emancipations that have taken place from 
that time until this. There is truly moral power put forth for good, in 
the obedience enjoined upon the slave, and especially in the duty to the 
slave, enjoined upon the master. 

Question. — Was Christ as capable of feeling sympathy as men of the 
present day ? Was he as capable as men of the present day of expressing 
his sympathy in the best form ? 

Question.— Is all that he felt, and all that ho did, in reference to sla- 
very, infinitely right, and infinitely perfect ? If he. was " God manifested 
in the flesh," this must le so. And if this be so, then there is, in our 
country, the most daring and high-handed rebellion against God, on this 
subject, that has ever been practised since he said, " ye are my friends, 
if ye do whatsoever I say imto you." The principle of subordination, 
sought to be overthrown, is vital in Church and State. The infidel prin- 
ciple of " freedom and equality," sought to be established on its ruins, is 
unknown to the Bible, contradicted by all experience, and subversive of 
all government among men. 

The next inspired instruction I will present to my reader on the sub- 
ject of slavery, is in Paul's letter to the Corinthian church. Nothing was 
more familiar at that time to the minds of men than slavery in Corinth, 
and all the adjacent sections of the European and Asiatic continents. On 
the subject of slavery the apostle, in his letter to the church, lays down 
a general principle to guide Christians in this and other relations they may 
sustain to society, while the world stands. It is this, " that every man 
abide in the same calling wherein he was called." In chap, vii, 1 to 25, you 
wiU fmd his meaning to be this : that if a man was called being a servant, 
the Gospel did not free him ; if free, the Gospel did not enslave him ; if 
married, the Gospel did not divorce him ; if single, the Gospel did not 
compel him to marry. These were all relations among men that were 
sanctioned of God. The Gospel corrected their abuses, by pi-escribing 
their duties. The omission of these duties was made to be sin against 
God. The context shows that the apostle advised slaves and all others 
to remain as they were called. " Art thou called being a servant ? care 
not for it ; " and advises, " if thou mayest be free, use it rather," which 
was understood, until Calvin's day, to mean, use slavery rather. I have 
no doubt from the context in the 20th and 24th verses, and the circum- 
stances of the times, that Paul would advise a preference for slavery over 
freedom, to the slaves of this church, and to all other slaves with Chris- 
tian masters, placed in circumstances analogous to those which then 
existed. If his advice to unmarried persons, in the 8th and 9th verses, 
and in the 26th and 27th, to remain single during that time of trouble, 
was good advice, then for the same reason his advice to Christian slaves 
with Christian masters, not to accept freedom if offered to them, was 
good advice also. In slavery to Christian masters, they were provided 
with homes, coiUd remain with their families, were provided with food 
and raiment, were free from anxious worldly care, and could wait upon 
the Lord without distraction. If freed, they would have nothing to de- 
pend on for the support of themselves and their families, but their daily 
labor, and, in addition, would have the burdens of government tomeet, 
and the perils of war to encounter. In assuming the responsibilities of 
freedom, they would have many competitors for the rewards of labor and 
merit. These competitors, for the time being, would be better qualified 



50 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

than themselves to obtain the prize. With such facts before the apostle's 
mind, and with his experience of actual life, he could scarcely fail to ad- 
vise Christian slaves, who were without experience and proper qualifica- 
tions for the successful use of freedom, to use bondage rather, if freedom 
should be offered them by a Christian master. This would be the advice, 
it seems to me, of any sensible, good man, to a slave under like circum- 
stances. From the context, I take this without doubt to he the apostle's 
advice. In any event, however, as to what he meant by, " use it rather," 
the doctrine as to the lawfulness of slavery is the same. 

Now let us glance at the antagonism between the teaching of God to 
this church on the subject of slavery, and the teaching of abolition- 
ism. God teaches a slaveholding church to let every man abide in the 
same calling wherein he was called ; that is, " if thou art called being a 
servant, care not for it " — that slavery is a condition that should not awa- 
ken a care in his mind. Care not for it, says God to the slave. Aboli- 
tionism teaches that he should care so much for it, as to assert his liberty, 
and, if necessary to secure it, he may murder his master, steal his prop- 
erty, burn his house, escape from his service, and use every means 
to overthrow his master, and the government under which his master 
lives, if it takes peace from the earth, and all the blessings of civil- 
ization. 

Can any two things be more opposite than this teaching? No wonder 
the apostle should charge Christians to withdraw from all who teach 
a doctrine that must, when carried to its legitimate results, overthrow 
all subordination among men, and involve the w^orld in anarchy and 
blood. 

I feel almost ashamed, that in a Christian country any man should be 
called upon to prove slavery to be a relation which God, in his word, 
sanctions as lawful. Every man, from the time he begins to know any 
thing, begins to know that the principle of slavery, and that slavery itself, 
to some extent, is an indispensable element in every form of government. 
The extent of the control is to be measured by the capacity of the subject 
on which it acts. This is the prominent principle in every vitalized 
organization of the material world, as well as those organizations ordained 
and sanctioned of God for social purposes. 

The subordination of the inferior to the superior stands prominently 
to view in every thing that comes from the hand of infinite wisdom. Re- 
bellion against this principle peopled the realms of darkness with those 
who were once the angels of light. The same thing brought upon us " all 
our -woe." The Gospel of the Son of God was designed to re-establish 
tlie dominion of this principle. When this object is accomplished, the 
wilderness and the solitary place of the human heart are seen to bud and 
blossom as the rose. The rebellion of abolitionism against this principle, 
as an element in the social structure, is active, and dangerous in the highest 
degree to regulated liberty and Christian civilization. If the Bible was 
duly reverenced, and but slightly examined, the evil could bo corrected. 
But wlien we see men who are eminently intellectual, professing allegiance 
to Christ, and claiming, at the same time, his authority for doing and 
teaching what he has in his word denominated blasphemy, it awakens una- 
voidably the painful foreboding which the inspiring Spirit authorizes m 
this declaration : " Because they receive not the love of the truth, that 
they might be saved," " God, for this cause, shall send them strong delu- 
sion, that they should believe a lie, that they all Tuight be damned who be- 
lieve not the truth, but have pleasure in unrighteousness." The truth of 
God on slavery is not believed, and unrighteousness, of the most crimson 
hue, has given among us the highest pleasure to abolitionists. They are 
seeking to overthrow governments whose models have the express sanction 
of the Almighty. The Scriptures I have quoted from the Old Testament, 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 51 

prove that God ordained at Mount Sinai a slave government for his own 
people ; and those quoted from the New Testament prove that Christ, by 
the apostles, sanctioned slave governments organized by men, as ordi- 
nances of God. 

It would be quite as creditable to claim the character of benefactors 
and philanthropists for crusaders in favor of freedom and equality among 
the members of the human body, as among the members of the social 
body. Let each member of our bodies be personified — then invest the 
foot with as much right to control and govern tlie eye, as the eye has to 
control and govern the foot, and so on of all the rest of our members, 
and in this you will have 'a fair sample of what is now going on. The 
foot, with the aid and control of the eye, is as useful and as necessary as 
any other member of the body, for securing and participating in the gen- 
eral and harmonious result of a subordinated set of members, which alto- 
gether make up our body. But when the control of the eye is taken 
away, and the foot, unaided and uncontrolled by the eye, commences its 
work in the thorny and dangerous path of life, upon the "freedom and 
equpAity" principle, you will soon see a result which resembles the re- 
sult in a social body under the same abolition and infidel principle. 

I know very well that the masses at the North have been artfully 
subjected by the school, tlie pulpit, and the press, to a system of teaching 
which has left them ignorant of God's word on the subject of slavery. I 
know there yet lives in many of their hearts a reverence for that word, 
which would secure for it a control over their consciences, if they knew 
its teachings on this subject. Hoping that God in his providence will 
make me an humble instrument in opening the eyes of some such, I have 
penned these pages. I feel that the necessity for such an effort is a 
scandal to a Christian people ; for certain I am, that no article of the 
Christian faith is better sustained by the Bible, than is that of slavery. 

Having quoted the Apostle of the Gentiles in his inspired letters to 
Gentile cliurches on the subject of slavery, before I close, I will quote 
Peter on the same subject, w^ho was the Apostle of the Jews. He felt, in 
the latter years of his life, great solicitude for his scattered brethren, who 
were persecuted and enslaved tln-ougliout the extended region of their 
dispersion, along the western boundary of Asia, and the eastern boundary 
of Europe, from the Mediterranean to the Black Sea, and thence along 
the northern boundary of what is called the Lesser Asia. This had long 
been the theatre of their dispersion and suffering. But many of them, 
hearing the Gospel, had enlisted in the service of Christ. The apostle 
well knew their character for disloyalty to other governments, and how 
unwilling they were, as Jews, to be subjected to the control of Gentiles — 
either in a domestic or political relation. And hence the instruction he 
gives them concerning government as an ordinance of God ; and hence 
the exhortation he gives them to yield submission to every ordinance of 
man for the Lord's sake. See chap. ii. 11 to chap. iii. 18 of 1 Peter. Here 
you will find that the same political and domestic relations are enumer- 
ated, as those enunciated by the Apostle Paul — the same su.bjection to 
government enjoined— and the same moral character demanded for their 
political obedience as that required by the Apostle Paul. You will find 
also that the same authority for husbands and masters is sanctioned, and 
the same subjection of wives and servants enjoined, as that by the Apostle 
of the Gentiles— and the same moral characteristics are demanded for the 
authority exercised by the superior, and the subordination rendered by the 
inferior. It is made on both sides a part of Christian duty by both of 
these apostles. They make it to be a service rendered to God as well as 
to men. 

Now, to lay this instruction of the Apostle Peter, with all the circum- 
stances belonging to it, by the side of the abolition instruction, and what 



52 SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 

do we see ? On the one side we see an ambassador of Christ, enjoining 
upon liis own tiesh and blood political submission, in a Christian spirit, 
to governments which sanction slavery ; to governments which had tailed 
to furnish guards against the abuses of the master ; to governments which 
were created and administered by an idolatrous people ; and enjoining 
also obedience, with good will from the heart, on Christian slaves to idola- 
trous as Avell as Cliristian masters. And it is worthy of further remark, 
that this obedience was enjoined upon slaves who were the descend- 
ants of Shem and Japheth, who Avere capable of exercising freedom ; and 
not upon Ham's race, who were devoted to slavery by the Almighty. 
See Gen. ix. 24 to 27, before referred to. On the other side, we see men 
blaspheming this doctrine of political and servile obedience taught by 
Peter, not because the obedience is rendered to idolatrous governments 
and idolatrous masters, but because it is rendered to Christian govern- 
ments and to Christian masters. They are not only blaspheming tho 
doctrine, but exerting every nerve to subject men to the belief, that such 
servile obedience as Peter's doctrine calls for is the greatest sin on earth ; 
and that governments which enjoin it, ought not to be honored or obeyed, 
whatever reverence for God or good will for men their subjects may 
feel and practise. And that rebellion and treason against such govern- 
ment are virtues, for which the perpetrators are destined to wear the 
brightest honors of heaven. 

Can there bo harmony between things so unlike, as the teachings of 
Peter and the teacliings of the abolitionists? Can these streams come 
from the same fountain? Can our abolition brethren be as safe to follow 
as Christ and the apostles ? One teaches " freedom and equality ; " the 
other teaches inequality and subordination One leads to anarchy, the 
other to order. One leads to love, the other to hatred. One leads to 
war, the other to peace. Either liberty or civilization, or both, must die 
when the woi'ld is subjected to the control of their leading principle of 
" freedom and equality " aiiiong men. It is self-destroying when adopted, 
and seeks to destroy all goveimments wliich do not recognize it. 

There remains another letter to be noticed, which was written by tho 
Apostle Paul. It is his letter to Philemon. I am often reminded by tho 
existence and contents of this letter, of the character given by the apostle 
to the word of God. There is a fulness, suitableness, and perfection 
ascribed to the Scriptures, which, it is said, leave us in ignorance on no 
subject of wliich, as Christians, it is essential for us to have knowledge. 
By the Scriptures the man of God is said to be thoroughly furnished with 
all the knovrledge necessary for guiding him in every good word and 
work. Little, perhaps, did the apostle think, that in writing this short 
letter, he was erecting a standard by whicli not only men were to meas- 
ure and be measured, but a standard by which States were to measure 
and be measured, not only in moral and soeial, but also in personal and 
naf,io7ial righteousness. This letter is so full of Divine Magic, that moral 
putridity in individuals and States can be unmasked by it, as readily as 
by the Saviour when he exposed the rottenness to view, which lay con- 
cealed beneath beautifully Vv^liited sepulchres. 

Before the writing of this letter, no Scriptui-e furnished the informa- 
tion which is now needed — that is, in a form that cannot be misunder- 
stood. In the progress of human events, this information was not needed 
until the nineteenth century. But the jjrecise information which this 
letter furnishes is now wanting. It is wanting to sliow the sin which 
men are now committing against God and men — not only in opposing 
slavery, but in refusing to deliver up fugitive slaves. 

Among all the covenants made by nations involving the obligations of 
morality and good neigliborsliip up to the eighteenth century, there was 
none to deliver up fugitive slaves to their owners. During Solomon's 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMKNT. 50 

reign, SPiimei pursued and recovered twn nf ]„•» oi-, , , , 

refuge with Acliish, son of the kbgt 7nei'hbo rinl "^tot'e 't,'^ ''^^'" 
dehvered up on application of tiie owner-S ,,-? "^.i ^*^-, ^^'^7 ^^-^'-^ 
case, has frequently been practiced n rop-.r V^ f "? ''''"."^^'' "' ^^ ^^'^'^■ 
fugitives from justice. B^t no olen.n fo^en nt iS ?' ^T ^''^^"^ ^"^^ 
into by nations to deliver them up raScntin oV fT' ^''"^ '"^"'^'^ 
the original sovereign States which fonS ST;' t" • ^^'^"' '''''''°^'^"' "^^^^ 
so. When this coinpactT4 entered^^^^^^^ li ^It'^'l covenanted to do 
relied on ; and by tirsolem'^iS fot oSh the nS? ""t 1,'" ''''' "^^ 
in the person of their agents bound theS-ne i ^f ^^ ^^ ^^^'^ compact, 
to deliver up fugitive skves ' ^hemsehes before heaven and earth 

r^^^^:t^'^^:^^:i^'tj''''^^y^ ^^^tlve slave, and 
GospeU'-and most .ftecS?eV^^^^^^^^^ "^^"=^^^'- «^' ^^^^ 

ceive this fugitive again and to foSvelS Zd Wn d S^ • '""i^ •' *^ ^:'^- 
ing to pay that master for all which ths^irA.^c? ^"'"^"^^^ "^ ^'^^t- 
taken from him-that it would prove a lea^n lid in /^ °' ^"'^S^Iy 
meal, imtil it produced such n',Z\l^^-■^^ n three measures of 

right and ChJistian-like as to iSce 1 JI. Tl'?,2;"*' ^^P/'^^'"' ^^^ 
teen hundred and twentv-nine ve,:? aftei th.t vf ^'^'^ ^^""^'-^ '''''"- 
copy his example, and bind tliemselves in a so emn n ^'^''^^"tten, to 
him in their futui'e course of nat otl Lnduct TW ^o'- Ti*-!''- ^"^^'^^'^ 
the moral power of this in^nh-o,! ^^LT i V • ^" V^^i'^M it is to see 
of infidelitv^Xh re udiS the^^^^^^^^^ f "^ away under the sway 
equality," wWre God iS^.^?eSl2:'t£e^S':;^^r^ " ^^^'^" ^"^ 

rouS^^th'iSSli^e^a^^lStr.?' ^^^ ^^ ^'^^-^^'^'^ -- 
pengmn o. al/that i^^^ii S Se^BiS: oi! t s^Jg^f ^S?^^ ^^"^- ' 

outtaSie""t£r^^S 

tains, all the doctrine and all he Lv^ f YY ^^''' ^^^"^ ^««^^ ««"" 
ject.' AndacoSSeeand P rf t'an^W',^^^ the whole sub- 

all the questions which can suggS themi.l ^S lo 1 1 ™^1^''^ ?^ ^\*^ 

Gospel, and not only a preacher, but a preache s?andin<^ hi h in t o 
;wlf ^t^™ fp^those qualities which adorn the private ami offio .1 
character ot a Christian minister. The apostle after this sTnvp'« In ^^if 

Se:SnTii?;'§;rctT'? f ^^^r^-'^^i^^^^^^^^^ , 

inieiest n nm_, and cherished a most intense affection for him. 

bee. bound wiH.^r' "' *^''*^. *^^ ''^P"'"^ ^^^"^^ '^'^^^^'"^ '" years, had long 
beei. bound ^^th the prisoner's chain, and was daily looking for tlie Tn 
tence of a prejudiced tribunal that would end his fe He was Poor and 
sTiiX'fnr Inif-^^'^ his friends quail under Vhe'exSn^^f 
pSmifentlv fit^;^ ^"^ ^^™^ ^''' f^S^t^ve convert 



54 SLAVEUY AND GOVERNMENT. 

stances, who was not the iiumediate representative of God, in word and 
deed, would liave first wriLtcu to the master, and begged as a favor that 
the slave might remain and minister to him. Any man without intense 
feelings of responsibility to God and men for every word he spoke, and 
every act he performed, would have allowed his condition, under such 
circumstances, to furnish a sanction for retaining this servant until the 
master could be heard from. How completely this case is invested with 
all the circumstances which can give weight and character to the lesson 
God designed to teacli by it! The running away of this slave, his con- 
version to Christ by the Apostle of the Gentiles, in a distant country, its 
connection with the apostle's condition at the time, and with his personal 
acquaintance and high estimate of this slave's master, his high claims upon 
that master, his assigning the injustice of appropriating to his comtort 
what belonged to another man as the reason for sending the slave home : 
pultinir thes_> things togetlier, can any man on earth read this letter, and 
allov/ it to eyi)and in his thoughts to the circumference of its plain import, 
and then loo!; his fellow-man in the face and say, that slavery is a sin ; that 
to return a fu;,'itive slave to his master is sinful ! In the light of this case 
no man on earth can believe it. 

We of this Union have solemnly hound ourselves to deliver up fugitive 
slaves to their masters. The Apostle Paul was under no such covenant 
obligation. No earthly law bound him to do it. No New Testarnent 
statute had been delivered, which in so many words required it of him ; 
yet he did it, because he was guided by inspiration, invested with an 
office, and placed in a condition that made his conduct in this whole mat- 
ter an autJiorltative law of Christianity, so plainly written that all men 
who seek to glorify God by acting out his will, in justice and righteousness 
on this subject, cannot misunderstand it. 

The apostle, in complying Avith the demands of justice to the master 
by sending his slave back to him again, and in exemphfying the doctrine 
of Christ, which requires of us whatsoever is just, whatsoever is honest, 
whatsoever is of good report, and especially that we act out the spirit as 
well as the letter, of loyalty to government as God's ordinance— deprived 
himself of all the soothing sympathy and suitable assistance which this 
converted slave could have rendered him., that he might by his_ conduct 
let the pure and unalloyed righteousness demanded by Christianity shine 
out like the sun, so that all msn could see what the will of God was under 
like circumstances. He had taught this will in person to the churches. 
He had sent it to them, and to the evangelists, in letters. He now em- 
bodies all he had taught, and the legitimate results of his teachings, in his 
conduct. Our fathers entered into a covenant to carry on the righteous 
course of conduct exhibited by this inspired example. But, alas ! their 
covenant is now declared to be "a covenant with hell." and a breach of it 
a passport to earthly honor. 



OBJECTIONS ANSWERED. 

TiiERK was a statute which forbade the Israelites to deliver up fugitive 
slaves. The abolitionists teach tliat this law acted on the slaves of the 
Israelites. This is not so. It acted not on tlieir slaves, but on the slaves 
of the nations around tliem. It Avas in that day, and has been ever since, 
a practice among nations not to deliver up fugitives from labor or justice, 
unless it suited their policy and pleasure to do so. As a matter of comity 
it lias at limes been practised. Wlicn these sovereign States formed a. 
Federal Union, they agreed by a solemn covenant to deliver up to their 
masters fugitive slaves who fled from another State. The Almighty forbade 



SLAVERY AND GOVERNMENT. 55 

the Jews to do this, because the shaves who fled to them fled from idola- 
trous masters, and idolatrous nations around them. 

These idolatrous nations and their idolatry were devoted to destruction 
by the Almighty. To have delivered up these fii^jitives, therefore, to their 
idolatrous and cruel masters again, would have been equivalent to putting- 
them to death, because death awaited them on their return. ° 

Again, by a law of the Israelites, Dent. xvii. 2 to 7, if any person prac- 
tised, or was guilfT/ of idolatry among them, he was immediately punished 
with death. The fugitive from an idolatrous nation, who fled to them, must 
theretore renounce his idolatry or incur the penalty of this law ; he could 
not contmue an idolater and live. Had the Israelites been permitted to 
deliver him up to his idolatrous master, they would have presented the 
strange anomaly of giving aid and encouragement to that very idolatry 
they v/ere commissioned to exterminate. 

The law, as I have said, had nothing to do with the slaves of the Israel- 
ites when they fled from their masters. The Almighty had given the 
Israelites legal authority to purchase slaves, made these slaves property 
bound them to service or labor, and passed a law authorizing their mas- 
ters_ to transmit them as an inheritance to their children forever. See 
Levit. XXV. 44, 45, 46. Sarah's slave-maid Ilagar ran away from her mis- 
tress. The Almighty sent an angel from heaven to order her back to her 
mistress again. Ouesimus, a slave man, ran away from his Christian mas- 
ter Philemon. ^ The Apostle Paul sent this slave, when converted, back to 
his master again. These, I should suppose, might be taken as safe patterns 
to follow, under like circumstances, unless we are better than angels or 
apostles. 

There was another statute in the Mosaic law which forbade stealing and 
selhng ot men. The abolitionists teach that this law proves slavery did 
not exist among the Israelites. There is such a law as this in all the slave 
btates ot the world, and it is the legal existence of slavery that renders 
such a law necessary. Where there is no slavery there is no need for this 
law. While all slave States however forbid the steallnff of free men or 
slaves, they sanction and regulate by law the imjing and seUijig of slaves, 
as did the Mosaic law. Wliat the Mosaic law forbade was the stealing of 
Hebrews who were free, and making slaves of them, Deut. xxiv. 7 Or 
stealing any man to make gain of him, Exo. xxi. IG. Where the service 
or labor of men in any country is made property by law, then, as a mat- 
ter ot course, rogues are tempted to steal tliem, just as they are any other 
species of property which is valuable ; and for the same reason they are 
tempted to steal free men and make slaves of them, and hence the neces- 
sity for such a law. 

¥oTE.--According to the Bible the Almighty subjected the Egyptians 
to national bondage by Joseph, and afterwards, with tokens of anger re- 
leased the Israelites by Moses from national bondage to the Egyptians 
How IS this apparent inconsistency to be accounted for ? It is easily ac- 
counted for if we let the Scriptures be our teacher. The descendants of 
Ham, in Gen. _ix. 25, 26, 27, are devoted to slavery, and Shem and Jaidieth 
are made their masters. In the days of Jacob, Ham's descendants in 
^gypt were free, and were about to perish for the want of proper quali- 
tications to use freedom. God sent Shem, in the person of Joseph to 
subject them to a more efficient government than they were capable' of 
inauguratmg or disposed to exercise. One hundred and fifty years after 
thistho descendants of Ham, by the power of numbers and the worst of 
motives, subjected in the same kingdom the descendants of Shem to their 
control. They soon demonstrated, by imbecility and merciless cruelty 
that the inferior ought not to rule over the superior race. Ilenco the 
Almighty made a most signal display of his displeasure against such un- 



56 HLAVKUY AND GOVERNMENT. 

natural subordination, and the savage cruelty to which it led. By Moses 
he released the Israelites, the superior race, from this bondage to the in- 
ferior, and visited his wrath upon the usurpers of his power for their 
unnatural and savage cruelty. He had delegated his power to Shcra and 
Japheth to control Ham. But he never had delegated his power to Ham 
to rule over Sliem or Japheth. The divine subordination of these races 
is written in the Scriptures for our learning. It is only necessary to look 
upon the domestic and national fields of experiment up to the present 
period uf the world's history, to satisfy us that God's plan of subordinating 
indi\ ideals and races is wise, humane and good, and that the infidel theory 
of '• freedom and equality " is only evil, and that continually. 



^ 



•Jc 



